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.

Seven Tips for Health

In keeping last week's theme of weight loss, we felt that it would be appropriate to present a post giving hints for healthy eating. Since I ( Engineer R) do not know much about healthy eating, I decided to turn to the internet for help. When I Googled "How to eat healthy...," the first prompt I got was "How to eat healthy at Cafe Rio." Whaaaaaat? That's why you go to a place like Cafe Rio, so that you do not have to eat healthy. I get the chicken burrito with pinto beans and hot sauce, enchilada style, every time. Yeah, it's probably like 40,000 calories, but who cares. I would rather eat 40,000 calories of something that tastes good than 400 calories of something that tastes bad.

It reminds me of those people who go to Baskin Robbins and order a fruit parfait. I'm one of those awful people that goes with the church youth group to an ice cream parlor and orders an ice cream cake.....for myself........and consumes it on-site.

But, to cut to the chase, here are seven tips for healthy eating that we usually follow here at DE. After an introduction such as the one above, you may doubt the credence of some of these tips. Nevertheless, rest assured that they are all based on sound medical research (and are AARP approved).

The king of slim, Richard "Slimmins" Simmons

If you are already following some of these tips, try taking our advice with a grain of salt. Of course, do not literally eat salt, since you should cut down on your sodium intake. But figuratively, take these pointers with a crystal or two of sodium-chloride.

1. Smoothie it. One fad that I have seen lately is "The Smoothie." The concept is as follows: The less appealing you food looks and tastes, the more calories you will burn. And the more calories you burn, the thinner you will be. A leads to B, B leads to C, ergo, A implies C. One common mantra recited among the Smoothie Folk is that smoothies taste so good. I always think "Compared to what?" (Credit Marcel the Shell; "One time I nibbled on a piece of cheese and my cholesterol went up to 900." ). If you were raised on pickled pigs' feet (is the whole hog pickled, or just its feet?) and lead paint chips, I could see that Smoothies would be an improvement. However, blended beets, eggplant, cucumber, and cruciferous vegetables (with a dash of lemon peel extract) usually makes for a gloop that the casual observer would mistake for cat sick. Maybe that is why Smoothies are so effective (See A implies C). Nevertheless, I cannot knock a health tactic unless I have tried it. Maybe one of these days I will have to try a kale-blueberry-lychee special. 
   
   

   

   Try not to let your mouth water.




2. Non-GMO, Gluten Free, Organic. When purchasing food at the store, these are some buzzwords to look for. I don't know what GMO stands for, but I think that it stands for gluteus-maximus-over-inflating. So unless you want your gluteus-maximus to be over-inflated, you better opt for the non-GMO option.  "Non-GMO" is a buzzword to look for.
   
   Another buzzword is "gluten free." This is not to be mistaken with "glutton free." Chocolate covered crickets are glutton free, since you probably will only be able to eat just one. But gluten free indicates that a product does not contain gluten. Some people have legitimate reasons for not consuming gluten. Moreover, although most of us actually can eat gluten, it has just been poo-pooed by the health people as bad for everyone. So only buy foods that are gluten free.
   
   Finally, consider going fully organic. "Organic" means that your food is fresh and raw, right as nature intended it to be. By eating organic, you can up your consumption of roughage by 38%. Although organic food usually costs more, please keep in mind that it is much more expensive for a farmer to not spray his or her crops with pesticide. (Wait, why is that true...?) Just keep in mind that you will get what you pay for. If you cheapskate out for apples sprayed with crude oil and wheat watered with "irrigation grade" water, you will probably die much more quickly than if you had anted up for the organic versions of these foods. 
3. Do not drink soda. Anything with the word "soda" in it should be avoided. Soda pop, Soda crackers, baking Soda, you name it. Do not drink any of these. Although, unlike baking soda, baking powder is fine to drink. Just as long as you mix it with a little bit of ginger extract, baking powder can do wonders for your health. As a wise woman once told me,

   "Didn't your momma ever teach you the difference between baking soda and baking powder? One makes your teeth yellow, and the other makes your teeth white."

   Unless you want yellow teeth, avoid all types of soda. I mean, why do you think that soda crackers are the same color as tooth plaque? 




4. The secret is seeds. Seeds are extremely healthy for you. This is why baseball players eat so many sunflower seeds. Who needs PEDs when you have a bag full of protonitroglyero-omega-gamma-kappa-antioccident nutrient packed seeds? Seeds, my friends, are the answer to much of what is wrong with sports nutrition. Do not even get me started on flax seeds. Flax is the worst card in Pit (even lower than hay), but the seeds of flax are America's wonder seed. Now picture what would happen if you put a handful of flax seeds in a Smoothie. Talk about a burst of 1.21 gigawatts. And the best thing is, they are gluten free.
   
   
   

   

   A 1919 version of Pit.




5. Eat foreign foods. According to a study done "a while ago," 87% of Americans could lose weight if they stopped consuming American food. This is why we are suggesting that readers consider eating exclusively foreign foods.  It is a well known fact that people from other countries are not fat. This is because foreign foods are all very healthy for you. In keeping with this foreign foods movement, we cooked a food called 부대찌개 this past week.
   
   

   

   This is 부대찌개

   
   부대찌개 is a food that contains many healthy things like noodles, cabbage, onions, and trace amounts of MSG (Mega Super Good-for-youness). 부대찌개 also contains a meat called 스팸 (literally translatiterated "spaem"), which is full of natural ingredients. I think that we even can claim that 스팸 is organic, since I do not believe it has been sprayed with pesticides. This meat comes in a sealed airtight can to keep non-organic things from profaning its naturalness. 
6. Zumba. The Urban Dictionary defines Zumba as follows: "A popular and highly suggestive dance exercise that has taken the world by storm." Why wouldn't you want to lose weight while being suggestive? (Or is being suggestive the reason you want to lose weight? Something to ponder on).
   
   Becoming involved in an exercise regimen is the leading cause of weight loss next to mortality. Might we suggest (but not suggestively) that you include Zumba as part of your exercise regimen? It is one of the few exercise programs where men are allowed to get away with wearing pink stretchy pants and gold sequins. (Besides Richard Simmon's programs of course, but he's from an era when pink on men was still acceptable. Gold sequins....not so much).
   
7. Honey for Health. According to Men's Health, honey has powerful health properties. They suggest using honey as a disinfectant for cuts. But why stop there? Topical application of honey is a good first step, but ingestion is better. I once had a roommate that would take a chug from the honey bear every morning before going up to school. This allowed him to go out in public without having to spray pesticides on himself. So organic!

We hope you enjoy these health tips. Good luck with your non-GMO flax seed smoothies. Comment below if you have any other great health tips we should share with readers. Please refrain from suggestive suggestions, however.

Quilting

Before beginning this post, we must warn some of our more sensitive readers that we have worked in several jokes about adipose tissue. If such a topic makes you weepy, consider grabbing a box of tissues now. But not a box of adipose tissues, mind you. 

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During this past week, our interest was piqued relative to the topic of sewing and quilting. Engineer J is more of an expert in this regard. I (Engineer R) have slowly been learning some of the terminology germane to such a pursuit.  Admittedly, I am not an expert at quilting, but when I hear the words "jelly rolls" and "fat quarters," quilting is not what comes to mind.........In other news, Weight Watchers keeps sending me unsolicited ads.

It was not until I saw what could be called "modern quilting" that I realized that one can make a quilt by use of a machine. Since my great-grandmothers did quilts by hand, I had never realized that there was such a thing as a quilting machine. These newfangled machines can quilt ornate patterns into your blanket. Probably the next best invention after the cotton gin and the spandex body suit. (Hmmmmm, a quilted body suit made of cotton......if that ever is a thing, we thought of it first).

Engineer J is currently making a quilted table runner. I do not know if it will ever actually make it to our table, since our dinner table is usually covered in an assortment of cookware (clean cookware, mind you).

The kitchen table we have is a piece of garbage, honestly. A chair from our old table broke, so the onsite manager for our apartment decided to buy us a whole new table from the Internet. Good thing our rent goes to worthy causes. I think it cost more to ship this garbage table than it did to actually make the table. And shipping was only $5.99.

Instead of chairs, this table has benches. Picture short versions of 17th century Puritan church pews. Dreadfully uncomfortable to sit on. No padding. Edges that dig into your legs and back. Over time, we have developed uses for these pews that do not rely on their being used for eating. Let's just say the home teachers could only stand sitting on them for 11 minutes. 

Since the end of the month is fast approaching, feel free to drop by and borrow the pews. We already have reservations for June 26 at 2:30 pm, 4:00 pm, and "sometime after church." We also have a tentative arrangement with a family four blocks over for June 30 at 11:45 pm. (Hey, if their home teachers can last longer than 15 minutes on the pews of death, they can also count their visit for July. Just sayin'). 

Maybe it is horrible, but we usually just eat on the couch and watch TV. Perhaps this is why people balloon up after getting married. Mixing TV with food is usually a recipe for disaster. Not only does it cause what one of my former roommates called "crumb bum" (i.e. old pieces of food between the cushions), eating on the couch is also associated with lower self esteem, epicardial adipose tissue (EAT), cognitive decline, pulmonary blockage, and binge eating of an entire quart of peach yogurt with a bed sheet over your head. (It was 2010 and we were incarcerated in The Hood. He was in a low place, but is better now). 

Neither of us here at DE have ballooned up after marriage, so hope springs eternal that we can keep it that way. Luckily, since our apartment is usually about 90 °F, this has helped us sweat off any weight we might be gaining otherwise. It is not effective as Weight Watchers' 30-day guaranteed "Slim and Sexy" program (only $29.99 + TAX / week!), but  nevertheless we have had some success with the natural sauna method. If you are sweating, it's exercise, right? This is why Arizona has the lowest rate of obesity in the world.

Of course, there are times where you do not want to be on the weight loss highway. One of these times is when you are sleeping. If you have ever had to sleep in the heat of the summer, you probably know that a fan is rather helpful.

The Power Fan

There are various theories that some experts float around that say that one should not sleep with a fan. After all, a fan can cause hypothermia or suffocation. A few of you may be familiar with what we are talking about. If you are afraid of these repercussions of "fan death," please disregard our advice about sleeping with a fan, and continue your weight loss regimen as you sleep.

The topic for next week is yet to be determined. Most likely there will be no further jokes about adiposity. But there might still be jokes about home teachers. It sort of depends on how many cookies they bring and how long they stay. (Cue the peach on the tongue jokes.....).

One wheel, no wheel, two wheels, no wheel.

As promised in last week's post, this post will contain various episodes of riding contraptions with sundry amounts of wheels and passengers. Due to the nature of our experiments with these vehicles, the pictures we include are live action shots.

Our first encounter with one of the aforementioned contraptions was on a Sunday afternoon. We had the opportunity of riding what is called a "tandem bicycle." A tandem bike is pretty much like a normal bike, except it has as many seats as wheels. Moreover, as luck would have it, not only is the number of seats doubled, but twofold also is the skill level required to operate the thing.

We never crashed the tandem bike, but getting it going required a third person to steady us as we started. This was not the ideal we had dreamed of. What about those joyful and happy couples that rent a tandem for two hours and blissfully ride around town? How do they make it look so peasy easy? Complete and utter lies.

Ronald Reagan and Virginia Mayo.

After returning from gallivanting around on a tandem bike, we turned our efforts to a different wheeled vehicle. This vehicle is called a "unicycle." As the name suggests, it has only one cycle. That is to say, in layman's term, it is very hard to balance, as it only has a single wheel.

Before actually attempting to ride this unicycle thing, we needed to inflate the tire. This posed a slight problem, as we had two partially working pumps, but no fully working pump. However, using our skills of engineering, we proceeded to construct a single pump from the two half working pumps.

As much as we tried to get up and go on the thing, riding a unicycle is rather hard. Maybe that is why no one ever asks girls out on unicycle riding dates. Although, come to think of it, that could make a great excuse for getting out of dating (as if you needed an excuse). "Sorry Bishop, my vehicle only holds one person." 

Or, an even better approach would be to buy a second unicycle. Then you could ask girls out on dates to tour the romantic sites around town by means of unicycle. One of two things would happen: Either she would have to turn you down (no one can say you didn't try, ergo, dating quota reached), or she would actually know how to ride a unicycle, which means she is either a freak or you should marry her. Admittedly, I am not sure what you would do if she turns out to be a freak that eats orange peels and rides unicycles. But at least you would reach quota when it came time to get a temple recommend. 

This summarizes our encounters with wheeled objects. Our story now shifts to an area up north of where we currently live.

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On our way to this northern destination, we passed the town of Henefer, UT. By our count, there were 23 road signs announcing our impending approach to the friendly confines of Henefer. Now, mind you, only 19 people actually live in Henefer, so getting 23 signs up in good working order was quite an accomplishment. Perhaps the town is so small that it takes that many signs for you to notice it is there.


Truth be told, I actually had heard of Henefer before this most recent encounter, but it blended together with all of the other Kanarravilles, Halchitas, Neolas, Floys, and Koosharems of Utah. And let's not even get started on DooShane, Hurracun, ManAway, or TooWilla. (Or, if you want to sound like a true local, "TaWilla," because, you know, 'Too' says 'Ta.' The 'a' should probably be a schwa, but that is getting too technical for a simple exposition on the innards of Utah geography).

But I digress.

After passing by several more pastures of ruminants, we arrived at the desired destination. It was here that we participated in activities involving wheel-less vehicles. Since the hoverboards were reserved for the next decade, we had to resign ourselves to watercraft on a lake.

The number of mosquitoes near the lake was insane. Luckily none of us are pregnant, or we would need to fear the Zika virus. Also, it is rather hard to paddle around in a lake when pregnant, (at least in the later stages, I am told).

Our expeditions onto the lake afforded intimate exposure to the flora, the fauna, and the froth of a waterfront used by the flocking masses of humanity.  As anyone familiar with maritime craft can tell you, some boats offer more protection from the waves than others. We were on the type of boats that offered less protection.  In fact, the first watercraft we tried was hardly a boat at all. It was called a "paddleboard." (See picture below)

As the name suggests, a paddleboard is a board that you paddle. That is how compound words usually work. (Except butter does not fly, and bulldozers do not make large male bovines slumber). Riding a paddle board is not for the faint of heart. You need to embrace the fact that you have a good likelihood of falling into the water a few times. Admittedly, one of us was more successful than the other at avoiding such spills into the cold blue depths. The photos below were taken by a man with a green hat and a telephoto lens.

Those sticks poking up can cut your feet.

No, he does not always wear cloths on his head. He just forgot a hat.

The next watercraft that we rode on was called a "canoe" (kə-NU; There, the schwa was used). This is a boat that many of you have probably ridden in at one time or another.

Thankfully, we were able to avoid capsizing this watercraft, although we did come close a few times. Having actually capsized a canoe in that lake, it was not an experience that one of us wished to repeat.

That is all for this week, but next week will bring another post. Although we do not wish to give too much away, a post about quilting may be in the works.

The Humble Abode

As is common with most people, we needed a place to live after getting married. The male domestic engineer (hereafter, Engineer R) had been living in a two room apartment in a different city. And by two rooms, we mean "the living quarters" and "the bathroom." Thankfully that apartment sold to another buyer this past week. Although, full disclosure, this did necessitate placing the bed from that apartment in a yet to be revealed location. Engineer R had hoped to sell this bed, but was unsuccessful. Having no other place to put the bed, it was sent to the confines of an unsuspecting basement. We plan on returning on a moonless night and removing it to place it up for sale again.

The current beds we sleep on are a pair of twin beds pushed together. The setup is quite similar to what was employed on TV shows in the 1950s.

Lucy and Desi

This is actually a decent setup in theory. It is like sleeping in a king bed, but you get separate sheets and blankets. As long as you do not fall into the thin gap between the beds, it is altogether an enlightening experience.

I will add that one of our beds is much firmer than the other, which sometimes has its challenges. We may need to do some experimenting with various mattresses from the other bedroom in order to reach a more optimal setup.

But that is an experiment for another night. As for now, we want to introduce our first domestic experiment.

I don't know about you, but I like to personally know everyone that is living by me. Now, lest we get confused here, I am not talking about getting to know someone in a friendly or neighborly sort of way. I am speaking about the pursuit of knowing all the available facts about a person, much like a government agency collects information about all of us without our knowing it. A desire for satiation in this regard is what led to what we called DEFO, the Domestic Experiment For Occupancy. 

The aim of DEFO was not to collect surfeit knowledge about everyone in our complex. After all, you need to start out with some simple exploratory research. Hence DEFO. The experiment works as follows:

1. Choose which apartment you want to spy on.
2. The goal is to figure out if someone lives in said apartment.
3. Put on a disguise. (See below).
4. Put a piece of packing tape near the base of the door.
5. Wait a few days.
6. See that the tape is unmoved.
7. Calculate the probability that this occurs given the hypothesis that no one actually lives in the apartment.  
8. Determine that probability to be very small (say less than 0.001).

Conclusion: We have statistically significant evidence that no one lives there. At least not anyone that uses the one and only door in and out of the apartment. Although, they could be accessing the apartment via a window, which is not unheard of in these parts. 

Disguises courtesy of Engineer J.

As part of our surveillance, we were able to confirm that a different apartment indeed had someone living in it. The resident spotted was about 5’10” and had a long brown full Moses. He was rather thin and was wearing a brown T-shirt with the words "Ninja Turtle Power" printed on it. Engineer R avoided engaging the quarry since he could have been armed and dangerous. (I am unsure what that Ninja Turtle diety is, but it sounds ominous). Bearded men are usually up to no good, you know. I mean look at Donald Trump. Wait, he doesn't have a beard......But if he did, it would probably be armed and dangerous. After all, that hair of his probably contains a B-52 bomber plus 43 chemicals that are know to the state of California to cause cancer. And let's not even get started on Aunt Hillary and Uncle Bernie. They have no doubt both had beards at one point in their lives. Or at the very least they have spoken with a bearded person, which is also dishonorable.

The next apartment we need to get intell on is the guy that lives above us. He may or may not be a man of significant girth, and we are pretty sure he has the sinuses of a congested rhinoceros. In fact, we have started to call him Tino the Rhino.

As alluded to above, Tino has a problem: He is a dreadfully load snoring machine. And a dreadfully loud sneezing machine. If I snored or sneezed that loudly, my head would need reconstructive surgery. Nevertheless, each evening we are graced with the dulcet tones of a jumbo jet preparing for lift off, and each morning we are met with the equally appealing sounds of said jumbo jet having an avian mishap. Obamacare needs to find this guy a good otolaryngologist. And ain't no bronze level coverage gonna fix this case of severe sonorous snoring. 

Tune in next week as we explain our adventures with riding a two wheel contraption for two people, a no wheeled contraption for two people, a one wheeled contraption for one person, and a no wheeled contraption for one person.