Fortitudine Vincimus

Occasionally there are thoughts that pass my mind that are not always sarcastic.  These moments are, admittedly, few and far between.  On a date somewhat recently I was asked who I most emulate.  I said, in arrogant bravado, Shackleton.  (As I recall I actually messed up his name, but let's not split hairs)  "My unrelenting persistence in the face of certain total failure." was the reason I gave.  In reality, this blog shows that I am perhaps the antithesis of the great Arctic explorer.  But again, it was a date.  It's all about lying.

But what started as a cavalier joke turned into a personal exploration of Ernest Shackleton and his ill fated voyage.  I've spent the better part of a month reading and watching films about how he and his men were trapped in the ice and then brought out to safety again.

There is not doubt that Shackleton undertook his voyage seeking for gain and riches in the world.  It was well known that he was best at exploring and little else.  He felt, at times, overshadowed by the fortune of his wife's family and wanted to make a name for himself.  He had tried on two other occasions to reach the South Pole only to be thwarted by bad weather.  It was his goal to be the first to reach the south pole and on his second trip he missed it by only 97 miles.  Not long after a Norwegian (who's name I forget) reached the pole and accomplished what Shackleton had tried for so long to do.

But no normal person on the earth remembers Flonder Flim's (I'm tapping into my Norwegian heritage) name now.  On the other hand, Shackleton is a legend for returning all his men alive after being stopped at nearly every turn.  Their ship sank, they nearly starved, they survived the coldest temperatures on earth, they sailed the most treacherous seas in the world in shanty boats.  They lived on an island that no man had ever stepped foot on before.  They crossed an "impassable" mountain range.  Hells yes I remember Shackleton.  The man who never quit.  The man who gave up his food and sleeping bag to keep his brother alive.  Someone who defines what a man should be.

He was even featured on 'Badass of the Week' online.

In his final feat of traveling across South Georgia Island he had to scale mountain ranges with nothing more than a small axe and boots with screwed fitted in the soles.  26 miles that no man had ever crossed because of the rugged and rough terrain.  At one point, when on the verge of freezing to death, Shackleton tells his men that they must slide down the mountain in the dark to avoid the freezing weather.  To me, this would not have been a calculated risk but certain death.  Endless crevasses dotted the landscape not to mention cliffs and icy walls.  But the two other men simply sat down with Shackleton and slid down the mountain side.  After surviving they even laughed and said what fun it had been.  Few men on earth could inspire others like that.


So what was it that drove Shackleton?  Where did his strength come from?  Years later he said, "I know that during that long and racking march of thirty-six hours over the unnamed mountains and glaciers, it seemed to me often that we were four, not three." 


The truth is that Shackleton is one of the most revered and respected explorers of all time, and he accomplished nothing of what he thought he set out to do.  So often we think that our personal success depends on achieving our self prescribed goals.  But in the end, God knows what is best for us.  I've felt in my own life many times where I was not just one in the fight for my life, but two.  Fortitudine Vincimus-- by endurance we conquer.

Reality Bites

One thing that I learn more and more everyday is that the value of college is less and less.  That's right folks, you're paying or have paid for something that fundamentally you won't use.  My best friend majored in English.  He has a great job.  Here I thought that I need something more practical and did Civil Engineering.  Turns out that he's way more qualified for his job than I am for mine.  I've done about two months of work that a monkey could do with the most mediocre of performances.  "Tom, can you makes these tables?"  Sure, but I'm gonna get them to you in about two days and you're gonna have to fix them yourself.  These are not the words that your employer wants to hear.  But the truth is I have no idea what I'm doing.  My vast knowledge of differential equations appears to be useless against the almighty excel table template.  "Tom, can you program a calculator?"  Sure, I switched my major to avoid programming, but I'll give you some unreasonable code in about a week.  Honestly, when are we gonna visit my airless world where all they wanna know if how far I hit a ball with a certain bat speed?  Shut the front door, friction exists?  Since when do we care about air resistance?

So as I go throughout my day I'm often asking a lot of questions.  Most of them are pretty inane and a small child could figure them out.  For some reason I'm a complete moron incapable of contributing.  It's so sad when my false sense of superiority is crushed.  Clueless doesn't even begin to describe my skill set for power line construction.

Who knew you'd be one of them?

Heroes

My last few moments of free time before starting work have been very carefully planned.  In accordance with my schedule of: sleep, P90x, eat, Neaman Marcus cookies, ESPN, and cruise the web, I came across this gem:

Sometimes being a hero is awesome.  I'm gonna ride a bike more often in hopes of being able to do this one day.

When it's in the name of the 'doing good' you can beat the hell out of anyone.

Maturity (mə-ˈtu̇r-ə-tē, -ˈtyu̇r- also -ˈchu̇r)

Personally I always go with the phonetically spelled 'matuerty'.  I find that the snottier you are the more 'matuer' people believe you to be.

Today marked one of those likely great turning points in my life.  No, no, I passed puberty long ago.  We're not talking about that kind of maturity.  Although, I'm still somewhat disturbed from the images of those maturation classes, but I digress.  I actually applied, interviewed, and finagled my way into a job.  For the numerous people out there paying very close attention to the banalities that are my life, I did have another offer.  But I don't think it counts as much because they gave it to me after a fifteen minute phone interview.  (SUCKERS!)

Our government was gonna let me do this after fifteen minutes of talking with me.  Just let that simmer.

This job is much different.  They met and had numerous conversation with me before calling to tell me they'd be making me an offer.

It took roughly three hours to convince them I could do this safely.

This is for sure the first picture in my office.

That really got me thinking.  I'd finally done it.

After all this time perhaps I can say that I've matured to the level that will allow me to lie like an adult.  I spent what can only be termed as numerous hours blowing sunshine straight up my would be bosses hind parts.  (I'm pretty sure I didn't tell them about my blog...)  "How would you describe your group interaction?"  "I find that I have a really knack for conflict resolution and enjoy difficult projects with large groups."  What was I supposed to say?  I friggen hate working with others because I find them most of them are inept at what they do and are further trying to ride my coat tails and take the credit?  I don't think they'd call me back.  Interviews are always a battle of 'How dumb do you think I am?'.  "What do you think about working overtime if the job isn't done?"  Seriously, am I dumb enough to say, 'Do you pay me by the hour'?

The best questions are the ones that have to do with 'need to succeed' scenarios.  What environment, people, place, predicament, pet, pronoun, or any other alliterative word you can come up with.  Any applicant with half a brain will grab a mirror find a sunny window and ask the interviewer to bend on over.  (Figuratively, obviously.  You don't win points with crass jokes typically.)

My personal responses have nothing to do with what I really think.  I need loud-mouthed smart alec people who like to insult the stupidity of others while trying to do as little work as possible.  My ideal work environment would be a giant office elaborately furnished with glass walls and a stunning view of a mountain/beach/foliage.  This space would be occupied by me alone with my gorgeous secretary in the foyer awaiting to fulfill all of my slightest requests.  These are my tools for success (although now that I think about it I'm sure I'd get very little work done).  Also I want a solid concrete cantilevered desk that I designed.

Picture this baby in the foyer but minus frumpy McGee.

But these are not the answers a committee wants to hear about a prospective employee.

So take a lesson from all those other applicants out there.  Pause to reflect, speak clearly, a muster up the most articulate and eloquent falsified information you can imagine.  It's the mature thing to do.

Please excuse my french.

Culo e Camicia

"Hello", I said.  "Eh come stai bella faccia da triangolo?".  Even after two years I knew exactly who this was calling me.  There is only one person in the world who still calls me triangle face.  We hadn't spoken in a few years, but that shouldn't change the fact that he insults me every time he greets me on the phone.  Our conversation consisted of the usual lamenting of our lives and commiserating on how superficial we are.  When I tried to be polite and apologize for boring Francesco with my italian, he remarked that my italian was fine and it was more what I was talking about that was boring him.

My niece made a comment today about the poor quality of the food that she was forced to eat.  Her wise mother responded, 'Isn't that lovely?', to which my niece replied, 'No, it's not at all.  Why would you say that?'.  I suggested to Cracker that she get used to the sardonic tone.

If you were to ask my best friend what my best qualities are I already know what he'd reply.  'Emotionally needy.'  I once said that in an interview.  They didn't call me back.

When my brother's girlfriend dumped him I thought it prudent to send him a card on Valentine's Day.  It was a Winnie the Pooh card with he and Piglet dancing on the front.  I wrote inside, 'You are twice as gay as this card.'

It seems divine providence has brought us all together.  If you're reading this perhaps you know the feeling.

Just like I was meant for you.

The Most Powerful Force on Earth

After another exquisite Neiman Marcus cookie I as down to enjoy a movie with my family.  My sister has was is likely the largest TV I will ever sit near in my life.  So we don't usually pick movies that have a lot of content, especially after gorging ourselves on cookies.  Our choice was 2012.  My expectations were low to say the least, and I usually am pleasantly surprised in these situations.  I was blown away.

What I saw taught me about the most powerful force in the universe.  I'm not talking about gravity, electromagnetic forces, weak force, or even strong force.  This is something that all of my engineering classes neglected to mention.  No, you sappy girl, it isn't love.  Fill my gas tank with love if you like that answer, cretin.

The most powerful force on earth is, of course, stupidity.  I was amazed in the film how Hollywood so eloquently forgot all their classes from their mandatory elementary education.  I'm not just talking about cars that never break down and planes that can fly from a dead stop.  They ignored geology that my 6 year old niece knows about.

In 2012, the year the Mayan calendar ends, the Earth's core melts and the entire crust of the earth collapses into the earth, in a spew of lava and great fissures.  But wait, isn't the earth's core already a liquid?  Oh that's right, in 3rd grade they teach us that the outer core of the earth is a liquid.  Even wikipedia knows that.  Well maybe they meant the mantle melted.  Oh right, the mantle is a plastic LAVA material.  It's pretty much an extremely viscous liquid as well.  Although it's considered a science project in elementary school, I'd say it's common knowledge that lava flows out of volcanoes.  Perhaps they meant the inner core, which is in fact a solid.  Well since it's already the hottest place on Earth it might be tough to get warmer.  The reason that it is a solid is because of the enormous pressure from the 760 miles of rock on top it.  Any temperature increase would have to come externally, causing the crust to burst into flames.  (Yes, that would be like the sun)  That darn crust is so cursedly flammable in comparison to the core.  So I'm guessing the filmmakers reduced the pressure by shooting off parts of the crust into space.  The last part wasn't shown in the film.

Pictures like this can be hard to interpret for screen writers.  

So far we've assumed that the earth's core become liquid, like it already is, and the crust sank into it.  Genius.

But wait, in 2012 the ocean doesn't sit on the earth's crust and therefore doesn't fall into the "core".  As the crust sinks into the liquid core it causes tsunami.  Please recall the 2004 tsunami in India.  The horrific tsunami was indeed caused by seismic event.  However, the wave was not even noticed in the deep sea.  The reason is because the earth rising slows the wave and pushes the amplitude higher.

Like this.

No earth, but we still see enormous waves consuming ships in the open sea.  But then again, the ocean is magically floating, so perhaps we can also dismiss the laws of physics in this case.

The real kicker is when a character acknowledges the supreme intellect of the Mayans because they predicted the end of the world and our culture couldn't with all our great science.  While I'll have to wait a year to learn whether or not this is actually true (gasp, what suspense!), there is a lingering question.  If the Mayans were so omniscient why didn't their calendar end in 1697, when the Spanish conquistadors finally subjected them to their rule.  We're assuming they knew when the world ended, but couldn't foresee the demise of their own population?  Seems like foreign empires enslaving your people ranks up their on important stuff to know.  

The real power of idiocy is was revealed in 2009 when the film grossed 769 MILLION world wide and only cost 200 million to make.  The makers certainly relate well to their demographic.  I could certainly fill my tank with 569 million.

Indeed

Are you insane? The answer is yes.

On days like today I'm reminded that I am quite quite mad.  Some of you might think that this refers to my temperament.  It does not.  I sat tonight screaming like a wino in my room at a TV screen.  My pulse rose, I could feel my heart in my throat, and I started to sweat.  Was I watching the quasi revolution in Egypt?  Perhaps congress griping about uselessness while the interest rose on national debt?  Perhaps even the extreme temperatures on the weather?  The answer to all of these is no.

I was watching BYU basketball.  Yes, sports have a way of turning me insane.  We were being out rebounded, making stupid mistakes, missing free throws, and our prized buck Fredette went 2-11 from three point.  

No smiles tonight. 26 points don't make him happy anymore.

I can't say why sports drive me to do things like this.  I once brought a girl I was dating to the BYU-Utah football game.  We weren't even in the stadium, but she looked like she was dating Mr. Hyde.  Needless to say we broke up shortly thereafter.  In my defense the relationship was on it's last legs.  And she was insane.

But if you're wondering, you're insane too.  There is no question about it.  Justify your actions all you want, you do things that you can't explain.  Maybe you want to frame your baby blessing gown and hang it in a glass case on your wall.  Or perhaps you enjoy books about impossible relationships to distort any normal relationship you could have.  You could be crazy enough to think that proven scientific evidence is wrong about immunizing your kids. These people are really off theirs.  Go to a psychiatrist, not a doctor,  if you think soda makes your ears hurt.  No matter what you think, you're just like the rest of us...

Even after reading this I think that looks fun.