The Princess may have been kidnapped

We regret that the blog may appear sporadically this week due to a) the Princess being contacted by people who want to pay her in return for some important editing work, b) the Princess attempting to convince the Hero not to put more holes in the walls of their home, c) the Princess being kidnapped by aliens, or d) the Princess being kidnapped by aliens who promise large amounts of chocolate in return for her cashing some checks for them. She will resurface as soon as possible, or when any chocolate involved runs out.

When you fall, make sure you're wearing the right pants

Recently I asked the Hero how one can improve one's ability to initiate ideas, particularly in the workplace. I asked because the Hero is good at this sort of thing, and I wanted to know his secret.

"He thought for a minute. "You pick a direction," he said, "and you jump in, and when you fall--"

I did not particularly care for the "when you fall" part.

"Wait," I interrupted. "This is not Mr. Fancy Pants."

"This IS Mr. Fancy Pants," he insisted. "When you fall, you try to hit several things on the way, and maybe they'll turn into ideas."

Mr. Fancy Pants, the star of an online game, is a stick figure who sports bright yellow-orange pants and a hairdo resembling the outline of a small fire.  Mr. Fancy Pants's time is mainly spent sliding about various surfaces, running through doors, and trying to eliminate giant spiders and other threats to his well-being, which is accomplished by jumping on them.

The Hero, needing an escape from his myriad duties as student, employee, spider killer, etc., has bonded with Mr. Fancy Pants and helps him in his quest. 

"But when Mr. Fancy Pants falls and goes splat, he can just start over," I said, still unhappy with the part about falling.

The Hero said that this is what everyone has to do.

So Mr. Fancy Pants has become a helpful metaphor for much of life, particularly the idea that to be successful, all you really need is a willingness to learn from your falls. And a great pair of pants.

Tales from on high

If airlines really wanted to reassure passengers, they would hand out a little brochure explaining the different noises you can expect to hear on the flight and what they mean, like this:

• Bump: Landing gear doors closing
• Groan: Hydraulics powering the steering system
• Heavy bump: Landing gear coming down
• Whoosh: Reverse engine thrust
• "Uh, oh": There may be many reasons you hear your flight crew say this. You should not panic. I said DON'T PANIC!

This would be extremely helpful.


When we boarded an impossibly small plane for our flight home from the Midwest recently, we heard a loud sound we hadn't heard before.


"Um, is this a wind-up plane?" I said to the Hero.


"Well, if the plane gets pulled back several times and then zooms forward, we're in trouble."


He looked out the window and joked that perhaps the wings were plastic. I looked too.


"There are wings...right?" I said.


Somehow we made it to our first destination, despite my constant questioning of various noises. Perhaps this is what has caused the Hero to take up reading SkyMall magazine with such concentration.


The next flight began with an announcement from the pilot that I fear more than any other (except perhaps "The restroom will not be available for this entire flight"):


"It's a bit windy at our destination."


This translates to, in my mind, "Gale-force winds, Category 8.5 Hurricane, get all your affairs in order now."


As we got closer to landing I became convinced that we really were in a toy plane, and some kid was dashing us around in the air, now up, now down, now sideways...I alternated between being too terrified to look at the ground and too terrified not to. I began giving the pilot helpful suggestions in my head: "You know, we don't have to land here. We could just keep flying and land somewhere where there is no wind, it doesn't have to be someplace close, you know, just somewhere that is not here..."


Of course the pilot did not take my silent suggestions, and miraculously we landed in one piece. Fortunately the Hero had his eyes open, unlike me, and could announce this imminent event, or I would have completely come to pieces thinking we were hitting some tree or building instead of making a nice, safe landing.


"I feel like we should clap," I said.


"I would," the Hero said, "but I'm not sure you're ever going to let go of my arm."


Note: If mrsgreenknees is reading this, be assured that I made it all up. Really. You have nothing to be afraid of when you fly to visit us. Winds are not allowed in our city. Really.

Canine curiosity gets a little personal

To increase airport security, TSA agents are implementing new safety measures, such as not letting anyone actually get onto the plane, except pilots, and making all the passengers walk to their destination.


Okay, maybe this hasn't happened yet, but it can't be far away.


An actual safety measure that we encountered recently was a random search of carry-on luggage at the gate. The TSA persons set up a little search station, right there as we were boarding, and randomly chose passengers to step out of line and have their luggage searched. For reasons best known to themselves, five persons were needed to carry out this search. One person conducted the search, while the other four stood around offering support, such as frowning.

The mathematically inclined Hero noted that the search was not random at all. "If it was really random, they would have picked two people in a row occasionally. But they didn't."


This seemed to concern the passenger in front of us, who wanted to believe that the search was entirely random, because if mathematical principles of randomness were not being followed, who knew what kind of trouble we might be in.


One passenger carried a small dog, who felt that he must do his part for American security by personally search every passenger before boarding. This was accomplished with great enthusiasm by jumping on the passengers, sniffing them, licking their face, knocking them over if they were more or less his size, etc. Before we had even gotten in line, I had seen him diligently conduct a search of the ladies' restroom floor in the terminal, just in case there were traces of prohibited substances on it, such as month-old food particles.


During his search of the restroom floor, I had been in a stall minding my own business -- I must stress this point -- when a brown shaggy head suddenly wriggled under the partition, bent on entering my stall to continue his search. When one is in such a position, one has few resources with which to combat an intrusion. I therefore gently stuck my foot under the dog's chin while saying, with extreme ineffectiveness, "No, no. No, no."


When it looked as if I would have to take more drastic measures -- arming myself with toilet paper to ward off a kissing attack? -- the dog's owner must have realized his intent, and the dog was abruptly whisked back into his own stall. This did not deter him, however. Two more times he attempted to wriggle under the partition, and two more times he was snatched back. 


I reported this invasion of privacy to the Hero, who, though appropriately indignant on my behalf, was glad that the dog's owner was a woman and therefore had not used the men's restroom. He wondered if the TSA agents would search the dog.

"If they knew where he'd just been," I said, "they definitely wouldn't."

We want you! But only if you can stay awake

In my ongoing job search I have noticed a number of ads for government jobs, as we live in close proximity to where the government operates, or at least where it carries out some reasonable facsimile thereof. Even if an ad didn't proclaim "This is a Government Job!" you could pretty much figure that out, mainly because of the government's obsession with numbers and percentages. Here are some examples.


Private sector ad
Candidate must have 8 years' experience.


Government ad
Candidate must have 8 years' experience, or 5 years' experience plus an advanced degree, or 3 years' experience plus advanced degree plus willingness to do some light housekeeping around the office, or some combination thereof that equals the magic number 8.


Private sector ad
Position will edit manuscripts.


Government ad
Position will work 50% time researching, editing, and proofreading content, 20% time working to launch digital communications, 12.5% finding experts to interview, 6.732% writing up what experts said, 3.46% getting experts' approval of what they said, 3.46% scrapping what experts said and making something up, and 1.2 % doing light housekeeping. If this does not equal 100%, position will be subject to audit.


Government jobs also tend to give a somewhat wider pay range, presumably to account for various skill and experience levels. A writer/editor ad for the navy recently announced a pay range of $17,000-$141,000. Presumably the candidates in that upper range will have 110 years' experience, plus several advanced degrees, plus a commitment to bring in chocolate chip cookies each week.


Of course, not everyone is eligible for particular government jobs. To make sure they are getting only highly qualified people, their ads usually say something like the following:


"Who is eligible for this job? YOU! As long as you are a U.S. citizen, a current federal employee, have super-duper security clearance, have an obsession with numbers and percentages, and make it all the way through this ad and the application process without falling asleep."


Having been through some of these applications, I can say that that last qualification will really separate the wheat from the chaff.


There may be other requirements as well. A national parks job ad warns that potential employees should be physically fit for the demands of its position:


"The employee is typically required to stand; walk; sit; use hands to finger, handle, or feel objects, tools, or controls; reach with hands and arms; talk or hear."


Sounds tough, but at least you are not required to both talk and hear at the same time.

There's a scholarship for that

A recent conversation among a gathering of friends turned to kids and college. One had impressed on her young son the importance of studying vocabulary words, so that he could eventually do well on the SAT and get a scholarship for college.


He was dumbfounded. "You can get a scholarship for being smart?"


Fortunately, there are scholarships for a lot of things. If you have a "demonstrated interest" in candy technology, you could win a scholarship from the American Association of Candy Technologists. Over the years I personally have demonstrated a great interest in candy...and I'm all for the technology that makes it possible for me to do so.


Sometimes all you need to get a good scholarship is the right last name. If your name is Leavenworth, you can get a full scholarship to Hamilton College in New York. Don't have the right name? Just change it! If you change your middle name to Huntington, you can get a scholarship to Vassar. I have no plans to attend Vassar anytime soon, but Huntington kinda makes a cool middle name.


The Hero does not understand why many parents feel the need to pay for their kids' college education. "I paid my own way," he said. "My mom really wanted to pay for my college, but I told her no."


"Are you okay?" I said with concern. "Free money, hello?"


There was also talk of hauling kids around to look at colleges they might be interested in. One parent confessed that she went off to college, halfway across the country, without ever having seen the campus. "I came from a family of coal miners. Who knew you were supposed to go look at a college first?"


With tuitions soaring, parents are worried about where the money for college will come from, even if their kids are still young. One hit upon the perfect solution: "If Jesus returns before the kids go to college, I won't have to worry about tuition!"


Amen. Even so, come, Lord Jesus.

Motivation by guilt

When we signed up with the computerized personal fitness system at our gym to track our exercise progress, we had to give identifying information, such as our name, weight, the fact that we are basically lazy, etc. We also, very unfortunately, gave our e-mail address, which the system is now using to make us feel guilty, as if we need any help with that.


We both received an e-mailed report of our progress last month, with helpful charts and pictures included to convey the result that we, personally, are wasting the system's time. According to my progress report, I expended a mere 6 calories at the gym for the whole month. This is equivalent, the report says, to 0.0 ice cream sundaes. The e-mail includes a cute little picture of an actual sundae, which only makes me want to eat one, not work one off.


In my defense, this report included only one visit, and that was our preliminary visit to get hooked up with the system. So of course I did not work out very hard.


But the report also says that I lifted an astounding 1,685 pounds in this one visit, equivalent to .2 African elephants! And there, in the picture included in the report, is the actual elephant I lifted. If you look very, very closely, you can see me -- I am the little dot under the front left foot, trying desperately to get out of the way before the foot comes down. That desperate attempt alone should have earned me more than 6 calories burned.


The Hero's report indicates 0.0 elephants lifted, which he disputes. He is sure he lifted at least 1.6 elephants.


"How did you lift so much?" he said.


"I think the trainer was having a little fun with the system," I said, which gave the Hero some comfort.


Another graph in the report shows the various activities I engaged in, such as walking/running and striding. I imagine that as I really get into the swing of exercising, more categories will be added, such as crawling, falling off, collapsing, etc. 


I checked out the website of the company that makes this system, and they also make wearable sensors that will track your activity throughout the day. When you are not even at the gym! Whoa. Aren't they taking this exercise thing a bit too seriously? I imagine those reports would be even more dire for someone like us. This report is being mailed to your employer, it may say, and also to your neighborhood watch team, your relatives, your local government, your church, etc. Everyone will know that you are a lazy fraud. Now get in here and lift some elephants!


To which I say, please pass me an ice cream sundae.