While this post will have little to do with what’s actually going on in our lives, it will give you some insight into what occupies our minds as we move along life here on this little isle of Britannia. The reasons for this post are three fold:
1. I am currently at work, and have been stranded with no boss and therefore, nothing to do……seems like a good time to blog.
2. We haven’t posted since March, mostly because nothing really happened in April or May. June looks like it may prove to be more eventful. Here is a preview: Scotland/Adam, Nana & Shari/mystical creatures???? Stay Tuned.
3. An odd occurrence of old-timey memories and a funny article I found this morning.
We can both remember the thrill, we think we can even remember the smell (although that might just be our weirdly dank smelling office assailing my senses at the moment). You’d run into the computer lab, frantically searching for both a good computer and one next to your friends. Compromises were made, you decide to deal with the one computer with the slightly screwed-up color-matrix-pixelation in the screen b/c you’re thankfully sitting far away from the smelly kid. Ah, the old Apple IIE. Back when that was the only computer that existed, and only in elementary school computer labs; it was like public elementary schools were the testing grounds and audience for breaking developments in technology and God knows what else (I have morbid suspicions that school cafeterias were particularly used for such purposes). Anyway, you pull out that old dinosaur of a software format, the floppy disk and insert it into the computer’s disc drive. I think I even remember a latch that you flipped on the drive once the disc was in. Lock and load! After what seems like an amount of loading time only measurable in geological ages, it finally pops up………..OREGON TRAIL! It gets exciting right away. You chose between being a carpenter, banker, or farmer, but really it wasn’t a choice. Banker, always choose banker. Sure, you had to start in Boston if you chose to be the Banker (as opposed to starting in something like Idaho if you chose to be a farmer), but the financial cheddar they gave you to start out with more than made up for the distance.
Then you get to name your family, and at first you chose all your friends until you realized that at least one person always dies somewhere on the Oregon Trail, so you mixed it up with friends AND enemies. So cruel the hearts of children, (but I really hope Robbie gets dysentery.) Under the auspices of the public education system you learn how to hunt (with arrows on the keyboard, a lot of guys never made it to Oregon ‘cause we just hunted the whole time, it was sweet), budget (you can never have too many axels or wagon tongues), and compose epitaphs. (YES…..Robbie totally bit the dust, now I have to write on his tomb stone. “Here lies Robbie…….it’s what you get for getting me out in wall-ball yesterday. SUCKER!”
And finally, the mighty Columbia river. You have to ford the river. Oh crap….panic sets in. This NEVER goes well. This was one of the diciest moments in the long journey, a moment of tension and suspense so palpable you could feel it. While your wagon floated across that river your eyes were GLUED to that screen. The screen could’ve been the sun and you wouldn’t have looked away. Sadly, sometimes the wagon sank, along with your heart as you watched. Thankfully, with only the loss of 2 oxen, your wife, and a couple kids, you made it. You can now live lonely, but tax free. Oh yeah, p.s., it rains 9 months out of the year in Oregon. Enjoy! And so it goes on the Oregon Trail. LOVED IT!
And for those of you who have the time, or like us, just can’t get enough of the old-timey craze, here is a hilarious article concerning old timey photos, the ones where Dad and bro are either bar men or cowboys, and the girls get to chose between a modest prairie dress or a dance hall get-up with built in cleavage. Man, we love our country!
http://www.theonion.com/content/opinion/weve_been_planning_this_sepia
Then you get to name your family, and at first you chose all your friends until you realized that at least one person always dies somewhere on the Oregon Trail, so you mixed it up with friends AND enemies. So cruel the hearts of children, (but I really hope Robbie gets dysentery.) Under the auspices of the public education system you learn how to hunt (with arrows on the keyboard, a lot of guys never made it to Oregon ‘cause we just hunted the whole time, it was sweet), budget (you can never have too many axels or wagon tongues), and compose epitaphs. (YES…..Robbie totally bit the dust, now I have to write on his tomb stone. “Here lies Robbie…….it’s what you get for getting me out in wall-ball yesterday. SUCKER!”
And finally, the mighty Columbia river. You have to ford the river. Oh crap….panic sets in. This NEVER goes well. This was one of the diciest moments in the long journey, a moment of tension and suspense so palpable you could feel it. While your wagon floated across that river your eyes were GLUED to that screen. The screen could’ve been the sun and you wouldn’t have looked away. Sadly, sometimes the wagon sank, along with your heart as you watched. Thankfully, with only the loss of 2 oxen, your wife, and a couple kids, you made it. You can now live lonely, but tax free. Oh yeah, p.s., it rains 9 months out of the year in Oregon. Enjoy! And so it goes on the Oregon Trail. LOVED IT!
And for those of you who have the time, or like us, just can’t get enough of the old-timey craze, here is a hilarious article concerning old timey photos, the ones where Dad and bro are either bar men or cowboys, and the girls get to chose between a modest prairie dress or a dance hall get-up with built in cleavage. Man, we love our country!
http://www.theonion.com/content/opinion/weve_been_planning_this_sepia
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