The Birth Of TrashBall.

"Hey, you know what would be great? A steaming cup of freshly brewed coffee, you know, grind the beans, the whole works."  Jeffrey asked, up to his elbows in a centrally enhanced fusion generator.

He was literally up to his elbows, this was a big generator, had it not been for Jeffrey's "little accident" it would have powered a small city using diet Coke and Mentos.

But, as is so often the case with research, technology and the rapidly advancing pace of technological innovation Jeffrey, and I bit off a little more than we could chew. 

"That sounds great, but we have a lot to do to get this thing operational before the demonstration with ConEd tomorrow." I replied, thinking how much a cup of coffee would hit the spot. "Hey, we have the that small worm hole down in the lab, what if we shot the ingredients, the grinder, two mugs and instructions to ourselves last week when we were waiting on the Coordinated Wheel Bashings? We had time then, remember the coffee we had on Wednesday. Man, that was great." I swooned a little just thinking about it.

"That was great coffee. And that is a great idea. Plus, think of the potential benefits. We can send back the data to ourselves when we had time to analyze it and make sense of the numbers." Jeffrey said, the excitement making his voice tremble, and his hands shake a little.

This had the potential for a real breakthrough. We could double our productivity without hiring any more people, analyze data before it was even available, make decisions based on experiments that had yet to be performed, and get fresh, hot coffee. The potential was limitless.

We packaged up some coffee beans, a French press, a Grinder, two mugs, and wrote a nice note to ourselves. "Please make us some coffee, and send it back through time to yourselves in the future. No cream, or sugar. Thank you." We signed our names so we would know it was us.

We tossed it into the Space Time Eddy in the lab. And as soon as it went in one of the cups came
flying out smashing into Jeffrey's face and breaking his new glasses. Then the note, dripping coffee and crumpled around the used grounds flew out and splatted against his white lab coat, with a insulting sound of pulling your foot out of wet cement. It left a stain that looked like he had been shot and bled coffee coffee.

The note had been written over with the words "make your owned damned coffee, losers." Man, we were jerks last week.

Jeffrey quit when the company wouldn't pay for his glasses. Enhanced fusion died on the vine, and the game of Trashball was born. We added the compressed air cannon because you really need to put some distance on it, or it comes shooting right back out.

It looked good on the whiteboard.

Last Thursday, one week and one day ago, Thursday the 21st, Dr. Dawg and I had a very important meeting with a potentially profitable client. We can't mention any names, but he represents an organization that is housed in a huge building that has more than 4 sides, but less than 6 sides, and throws money at anybody who can design and build a guidance system able to deliver a warhead through a basement window.

Anyway, on that morning, we overslept, and then somehow we started watching "2012" with John Cusack, we have a real affinity for doomsday movies where scientists save some small, wretched, undeserving, ungrateful contingent of base humanity. It still brings a tear to our eye.

About the time the aircraft carrier John Kennedy smashes into the White House killing Danny Glover (who, if you remember, kicked hell out of a predator, so he does not go gently into that good night) we remembered our meeting. We rushed out the door, Dr. Dawg in Iron Man pajamas, and me in a coffee stained tshirt and gym shorts. But, traffic was heavy and we were too late, our potential cash cow, client was gone.

Clearly, this was unacceptable. We had to make sure this did not happen again. We decided to install a black hole generator right on the big curved ramp from one freeway to the other.  We reasoned we could use it most days to shave between 9 and 23 minutes off our commute by traveling through quantum space and avoiding the 2nd freeway altogether.

On days like last Thursday we would use the "gravitational redshift effect" to travel through time, and make it to our meeting with minutes to spare, even if we had an extra cup of coffee, another frozen breakfast burrito, and watched the entire movie "Sunshine" where scientists equip a bunch of whiny, do nothing, no good astronauts with all of the tools and skills needed to reignite the sun with an atomic weapon, and save the world.

Today we took it for a spin, it worked great. We got to work at the same time we left the house. Our coffee still hot, and tasty, our donuts as fresh as when they came out of the little glass enclosure, the sprinkles almost jumping off the glazed topping.

Unfortunately for the small midwest city where our secret midwest office and research facility is located, the off switch malfunctioned, and the gravitational governor was sucked into the event horizon and launched into another universe. These troublesome, but completely unforeseeable, and completely "non-litigatable" occurrences have started quite a chain reaction on the east side of town.

So, to the all of the drivers who are now stuck in some alternate universe, or distant galaxy we would like to apologize without accepting any legal responsibility, And to the homes and businesses being swallowed into the inky blackness rest assured we are working toward a reasonable remedy, and it should be finished before it is too late, not that we did anything wrong, of course.

Super Bowl Prediction, Chips Dip Drink, repeat.

It is almost time for the annual Life Explained, Ohio Office Superbowl Party. Preparations are proceeding at a fevered pitch. We have a DJ for the pregame party, a crate of assorted chips, wheel barrows full of dip, soft drinks, drinks that are not quite so soft, two submarine sandwiches of length that is almost obscene, cakes, pies, ice cream and a fog machine. Nobody really knows why we have a fog machine or who ordered it, but fog is cool, so nobody is complaining either.

Nobody has placed any bets on the potential outcome this year. We learned our lesson last year.

It seemed like a good idea when we started (it always does). Dr. Dawg had finally calibrated the Accelerated Clock Manipulation Express time travel device (ACME). We thought it would be an easy thing (we always do) to jump forward a couple of weeks and see who won the "big game."

Bob, from Corporate Communications "volunteered" to go. Bravely, chin up, with a winning smile on his heroic face Bob climbed in the the machine, and in a flash he was gone, and with a loud crack, followed by a slight sizzling sound, a little smoke from escaping form the collar of his blazer, he was back.

"Detroit won the Super Bowl," he said, "By seventeen points. The final score was 38 to 21."

We grabbed the phone, called our bookie, and said "we would like to bet $123,017.93* on Detroit to win the Super Bowl."

A silence on the other end, followed by a laugh, followed by a muffled comment, followed by more laughter, followed by "Detroit isn't in the Super Bowl."

"Oh. OK. We will call you back."

Turns out the future is not a static event, With infinite variables, and possibilities the time stream could flow to countless possible occurrences. Bob went back, forward, again, Flash, crack, sizzle, and said "Oakland wins the Super Bowl, by 3 points, 31 to 28."  The sizzling sound was coming from Bob. This time we had to throw a bucket of Gatorade on him, it ruined his tie, and he was furious.

We checked the paper and Oakland wasn't in the Super Bowl in our "temporal stream."

There didn't seem to be any point in trying to find the right future. Bob might explode with another trip, and nobody else wanted to "volunteer," so we decided to buy scratchers instead. We won $235.00 by the way.




We are working on a method to control all the variables and manipulate the future before the next Super Bowl, We just need a little more computational muscle, maybe some powered by fusion, what could go wrong.

So, if you aren't busy on Sunday, and want to stop by to catch the big game, we will be here. Chips, dips, wings, breadsticks, and buckets full of drinks. Keep an eye open for the Life Explained Super Bowl Commercial. We love it, it kills us!



*It was all we could get from the company funded retirement account.

Doctor Dawg joins the team.

It seems like we have been working together forever. But it wasn't that long ago that it was just Bob, and Bob, and me, with a 1971 VW Van, a used copier, and a dream. We had been kicking around for a couple of years, trying to workout the details to a small time travel device. Nothing big enough for a human, or even a dog, or a cat. Something the size of a can of coke, or a package of breath mints.

We knew that if we could send a modern day item back in time, to the precise moment they took one of those tin plate photographs, the photos with all the grim, scowling people, we were on our way. The government would have to take us seriously. Besides it would have been great to see Bob's scowling, angry looking Grandmother holding a frosty can of Coca Cola, or a unopened package of Mentos. There might even have been some advertising money to be had.

But, we couldn't get past the Power problem, it takes a lot of juice to send something through time, even a soft drink. That is where Doctor Dawg came in handy.

Looking over his resume we were astonished, several advanced degrees in mathematics, engineering, chemistry, physics, and a minor in philosophy. "and you're working as a guard dog?" we were stupefied.

"Most people wouldn't even interview me as a scientist, probably because I'm a dog." There was a touch of bitterness in his tone, or maybe that's just the way dogs talk. He is the first talking dog we had ever met.

Darned Punks, Anyway

Anyway, he managed to convert an old microwave into a small fission reactor, and we sent a can of coke back to one of the first primitive photographs, but it didn't work out the way we planned. It spilled onto the lap of the subject, who happened to be an important member of the government of a small European nation. He stood and stabbed the photographer, who happened to be from a different small, European nation, and soon they were at war.

It didn't take long for a larger European nation to jump in and swallow them both. Those things happened all of the time back then, it wasn't our fault, probably.

Anyway, Doctor Dawg joined the team and we have been moving forward ever since. He wasn't a very good guard dog, he just didn't have the right stuff.

Wednesday, It Isn't Weekend, But It Isn't Monday, Either.

Today is Wednesday, and that means something here at Life Explained. It means the week is half over, and we have put the bad days (Monday and Tuesday) behind us. Monday stinks, positively reeks, you are faced with the prospect of 5 grueling days of toil, and labor, with no hope of escape. Tuesday is Monday without all of the pleasant afterglow of the weekend, so Tuesday is pretty smelly as well. But, Wednesday, that is a different beast.

Wednesday, the antechamber to the weekend. On Wednesday the coffee is a little crisper, and the air is a little cleaner. If you look hard enough you can see the weekend "ship of liberty on them iron waves so bold and free"* steaming in to your rescue. We love Wednesday. Too bad it only comes once a week, and we have to suffer through the hardships of the early week to get there.

One fine day, as we were drinking the tasteless, tepid coffee of a Monday, and trying to choke down the bagels of an oppressive work week, Bob, from R and D burst into the kitchen. Shaking with an excitement not normally seen until at least noon on Thursday, he said "I have solved our early week issues!"

"I have taken the digital clock from the rec room, wired it to the reactor core in the sub basement, and ran the whole thing through the time clock. Every Monday when the clock hits 9:00 AM, the whole company will shift to Wednesday, at 11:00."

"Why Wednesday, and why 11:00 AM?" Someone asked. The question was sincere, but the happiness at the prospect of skipping Monday and Tuesday was noticeable in the voice.

"I chose Wednesday, so we could have time to plan for the weekend, and 11:00 so we would have time to plan for lunch." That made perfect sense.

Everybody started scurrying around to account for the important things, like cancelling any vacation requests they had for Monday or Tuesday. No point in wasting them. And the coffee was tasting smooth.

Time travel, even in short, repetitive bursts, is tricky. Have you ever recorded a macro in Excel and thought it was beautiful. Taking the contents of several scattered cells, summing them and placing the total in a separate sheet, adding a touch of formatting for flair, and then printing it out. Life would be so much easier. Only you forgot to click the little "relative cell reference" box. Every time you ran the macro it added the same numbers from the same cells, making you and your computer look like complete morons. Time Travel can be like that.

So Monday, at 9:00 we moved to Wednesday at 11:00 and feasted. Using all of the lunch money we had saved from Monday and Tuesday to really make pigs of ourselves.  Then on Thursday, at 9;00 we ended on Wednesday, (the day before, not the next week, we think) at 11:00! This really screwed up a lot of vacation plans.

So, we disabled the digital clock, and the time clock, and our big plans, and suffer through the painful, dreadful days of the start of the work week. We gave Bob a little bonus for trying, but revoked his rec room privileges, he cost us a digital clock, after al;t
.

*From "Caribbean Wind" by Bob Dylan, Dr, Dawg says give it a listen.

A day of reckoning.

OK, there have been some issues with our time machine, not that it doesn't work, but it works way too well. All sorts of people have been coming and going, we lost count, and are not really sure how to shut it off, curse you Self Contained Nuclear Reactor.

And our matter diffusion and transferal system, not that it doesn't work, it just doesn't work very well. Sometimes people are taller, and thinner, or shorter and bigger around, and sometimes it changes hair color, and nobody knows where their tattoo will appear. It always get them back together, more or less, the way they were. Here, we should apologize to Bob, from Building Services, who is now a delightful shade of blue, stunning, really. We have that all worked out, Bob, and if you want to try it again, we are fairly certain we can reverse the hue, we think.

Anyhoo, it seems Congress is a little angry about some things, and has called us to appear before a joint session. One of the things they want to discuss is a small army of ancient Egyptian soldiers tearing around the nation's capital, drinking a lot of beer, and terrorizing commuters demanding to be returned to ancient Egypt. Though very few people understand what they are saying, in fact we are just guessing.  They might be asking for directions to the Cracker Barrel, we don't know. Dr. Dawg is an expert in dead languages, and is researching "Biscuits and Gravy" in ancient Egyptian, but it is slow, tedious work.

Everything is going so well in America these days and Congress has nothing better to do than harass us, poor scientists and engineers, doing our best to make this nation great again. How about the budget, the debt, the trade deficit, or the cost of living? Huh, how about that? What about Deflate Gate, Huh?

Don't worry, we have a plan. though.

Thank you, Doctor Dawg, and Al Pacino
we have wanted to say that for a long time.

The First Step is Always the Hardest, and Sometimes the Fastest, Too.

It was so much simpler in the early days. Just Dr. Dawg, Bob, and me. Driving around, in a 1971 VW Micro Bus, solving problems, and saving humanity. No withholding taxes, no retirement accounts, no worries, no huge government contracts. Life was simple.

We were staying in the HG wing of the Wells hotel in Baltimore. It had taken some work, and a lot of effort, and combing a microwave oven and a laser printer to create a small, controlled nuclear reactor, but our first time machine was ready to try. Bob, our accountant, had agreed to give it a shot.

"You're sure it's safe?" Bob asked and the trembling in his voice, and hands and knees,
made it obvious he was considering un-volunteering, backing out, not going.

I poured him a bourbon, neat. And Doctor Dawg pointed to a chalk board covered with long, complicated equations that had almost as many letters as numbers.

"I have been over the calculations too many times to count. They always come up the same. Since you lived long enough to be born you can't be killed before your birth. There is no way alter a reality that has passed. It is numerically impossible. It's all right there. Nothing bad can happen." He said, and a bit lower, under his breath, almost inaudible he added, "I think."

Bob had a very keen eye for numbers, which is why we hired him to be our accountant, but he did not understand science, or scientific notation. Which was fine, that was why we had Dr. Dawg. I was the driver, bartender, chef, shopper, and calming influence. We all took our jobs very seriously.

So, Bob finished his bourbon, looked at the equations, and Dr. Dawg, who patted him on the back, and said "you can do this, Bob, you are blazing a new trail, setting a new course for human understanding, you will be a hero. And we will wait right here."

Bob, stepped through the portal.

"Where did you send him?" I asked.

"I'm not too sure, but I was aiming for ancient Egypt during the reign of Amenhotep III, it was a relatively peaceful, prosperous time, according to the internet, anyway. We will find out, when Bob returns, where he actually ended up, and calibrate the Chrono Place-Ometer for accuracy. Hey is there any pizza left?"

I went to check, Dr. Dawg said we wouldn't have to wait long, according to his research, Bob could spend two or three days in the past and it would only be a small amount of time, no more than a few minutes, in the present. I was coming back with a couple of pieces of pizza, and a nice glass of Chardonnay, when Bob came running through the portal, screaming in terror. He knocked the pizza to the floor, I barely saved the wine.

Bob slammed the door open so hard he put the knob through the sheetrock wall and tore off down the hall, like a motorcycle.  Right behind him came a contingent of Egyptian soldiers, slamming through the small apartment, knocking over the couch, and table, and took off after Bob.  I drank the wine before anything else could happen.

Dr. Dawg looked at at me and said, "Well, I certainly didn't see that coming. We should probably pack up and go somewhere else. There could be a lot of questions soon."

We moved to Memphis, Tennessee and started working on a method to open and close the portal.  More on that later, though.

Hey, Haven't I Seen You Somewhere?

As part of my new, fit, healthy life style I walk at lunchtime. It is a good way to add a few extra steps, and see some different things. I work right on the edge of Downtown, not too far from the arena district. There are a lot of businesses around there, and a lot of restaurants, and there are always a lot of people around.  It is filled with life and energy, and easy to get lost in the sea of humanity.

But, not so easy that I haven't noticed strange things, dark things happening on the periphery. Things that the average person may not see, or comprehend, things that only an experienced blogger with an eye trained in the art of observation would notice.

One of the things I've noticed is how many people are exactly the same. Not just remarkably similar, but identical copies. Or, possibly can move in ways that defy natural laws and human abilities.

For example, I'm walking south down North Front Street, and I see a person, dressed in a particular manner, carrying a particular purse, pack, bag, or satchel, walking north on North Front Street. No big thing, a lot of people like to walk up Front Street in the Arena District, though I am not sure why, all of the action is on High Street, just a wide, long block over. Including the Chicken Truck, serving chicken for lunch, and being actively advertised for by a giant dancing, singing chicken.*



But, then I go left on West Spring Street and am now heading east, and see the same person, wearing the same clothes, carrying the same accessory. Either that person is exactly like that other person, or that person pulled some enormous feat of speedy travel.**  The block at the intersection of Spring and Front is huge, and it takes almost 2,000 steps to get around (OK, I just guessed, I will check the actual  I will check the actual steps nest time I walk that way.  Isn't technology wonderful?). But, something is definitely amiss here.


The theoretical physicists, and the forensic biologists are working on the problem now.  But, Dr Dawg has a theory. Between the late 50s and the early 70s, coinciding roughly with the end of the baby boom, they ran out of molds, or forms, or whatever they use in the production of humans, and they had to start recycling. So, there are many people who are cut by the same die.  Which makes as much sense as anything, I suppose.

Either that, or maybe there are not nearly as many people as we thought in this town. It is just a few people moving around a lot, and pretty quickly, in an effort to win more federal money.

Either way it is a little creepy, right up there with a giant, singing, dancing chicken.  And people eat that stuff?


*I am pretty sure it is just a guy dressed in a chicken suit. Since we all know birds are direct line descendants of dinosaurs I am not really keen to get close enough to find out.

**We haven't ruled out time travel, yet, but we haven't quite figured out how to do that, and we are pretty smart.

Christmas, the Gamble.

Christmas is here and the Jolly old Elf has come and gone.  So far, we here at Life Explained, (#lifeexplained) are still tallying the results.  So far, though,  it seems that all of our extraordinarily good behavior may not have paid off.  It is very a very complex formula, shown here with pictures to make you more comfortable.  But, as we look back on the effort we have spent it is clear it did not make economic sense to behave so well.

We are afraid that spells big trouble for the world next year.  It was not easy saving the world.  And we did it constantly.  There were alien invasions, ancient armies traveling to our time, robot monsters, vampires, werewolves, all bent on the complete destruction of mankind.   Who stopped them?  That's right, we did.  You're welcome.

Plus, we have perfected the intergalactic radio transponder, to signal alien civilizations.  We have the worlds only functional time travel machine.  Our robot factory is running almost non-stop, and our occult research department is making great strides...  Never mind all that, though.

Straight from Dr. Dawg

Just rest assured there is still time to make amends, Santa, if you turn your little sleigh and eight tiny reindeer around and come up with some new iPads, and maybe a new television, and an Xbox one, with some cool games, we might be convinced to try one more year.  It's up to you.

Not Every Idea is Great, But We Know How to Dine.

Life is a journey, starts here, ends there, and in between forward movement.  That is the biggest problem, only one direction, no options, no choices, no chance to correct mistakes.  Invariably, when traveling people, even the most thorough, and cautious, are going to get lost occasionally. Everybody needs to take a few steps backwards, and choose a different path once in awhile.  Life doesn't give you that chance, mistakes attach themselves, and stay to the end, a tattoo, a battle scar, screaming, "hey look, this guy had a lapse in judgement, go ahead and stare."

For a limited time we, here at Life Explained, are offering select people with the proper credentials (Visa, or Mastercard will work) a chance to go back in time and fix certain mistakes.  Using our soon to be patented, awe inspiring, Time Machine, we can help you go back and "erase" those annoying little errors that are like a blot on your life, "undo" those silly, youthful acts that make you wince while traveling down memory lane.

Do you wish you had never grown those sideburns?  Well, it is too late to do anything about that.  The pictures are all over and if you change something like that it will set off cataclysmic shock waves through time that will destroy the entire planet.

Regret that failed marriage?  You should have thought of that earlier, or listened to your friends.  Even they were smart enough to see how wrong you two were for each other.  How could you miss it?  Not that any of that matters, there is so much time, effort, so many paper products involved in a marriage that if anything like that were changed it would create a "discordance effect" that would destroy the whole galaxy.

Would you like to choose a different major in college?  Sorry, those things are so ingrained into the fabric of of time and space any attempt to alter them would create such a shock the universe would collapse in on itself, crushing everything.

Hate your job, too bad, car run out of gas, sorry about your luck, choose the wrong entree at lunch, well, that is just your problem.  After careful consideration, this is probably not the greatest idea we have ever had.  There are a lot of things that could go wrong, and not an awful lot to gain, that whole risk, return tradeoff blowing up in our face.

Hey, anybody want to grab some lunch, we heard they are opening a new restaurant in the Omega Centauri galaxy, and the happy hours in that part of the universe can't be beat, and Dr. Dawg is buying, unless you have an intergalactic Discover Card.

Immigrants in the work place.

Not to scale.

It has been pretty hectic, here at Life Explained, the last several weeks.  Our efforts to develop the means to colonize mars are starting to bear fruit.  And the Life Explained Time Travel Division is really making progress, and great Italian food, as well.  Things are going surprisingly well considering how the government has cut funding to such vital research.  It is such a shame, it is to the point you can't trust an elected official at all.  Anyway, with all of this work we were in a real bind, staffing wise, and decided it was a good time to add a few people, employment wise.

And, like a gift from the heavens here came several illegal aliens looking for a job.  We called a meeting of the executive council and quickly decided hiring people who just showed up, looking for work, unsolicited was a fantastic bonus.  We wouldn't have to go through all of the "want ad posting, resume reading, interview conducting" turmoil.  It was great!

Not only were we saving some real moolah on ads, but since they were not registered citizens we wouldn't have all of those burdensome tax regulations, and forms, and reporting requirements.  Plus, anybody who had mastered intergalactic travel had to have some serious science chops, right?  Not necessarily.

Turns out they were a bunch of post grad dropouts from the far side of the Milky Way tearing around the universe looking for a little fun.  Unfortunately, they ran low on cash and had to take a temporary job until they had enough to move on down the line. Their ship was powered by a unique fuel, that could be synthesized from mixing Alka Seltzer and carbonated water.  But, it took a lot of each, and it takes a while, and some serious cash to gather that amount.

As scientists they were useless, but they could paint murals that changed with the moods of the rooms inhabitants, which is a handy thing when you work with a bunch of petulant, childish, temperamental egomaniacs who fly off the handle at the slightest provocation.  We should save a bundle in bandages, and antibiotic cream.

Also, with only rum, tequila, gin, seltzer water, cranberry juice and a few drops of the fuel for the space ship they could make the most delightful drink, an Intergalactic Red Devil.  After a few of those the mural in the kitchen would be rainbows, unicorns, and smiling stars.  People would be dancing in time and singing in tune.  Amazingly enough, no one ever had a hangover, at all.  Man, those were good drinks.

They have almost enough fuel for the next stage of their journey, and there is a pall around the top secret Life Explained headquarters.  They were fun, talented and energetic, breathing new life into a stodgy, old atmosphere, and we are going to miss them.  And, no matter how hard they tried to teach us nobody could mix up a Devil like they could, they were truly artists.

Hey, Friday is closer than you thought.

Since Memorial Day is so close and the week has been so hectic we, here at Life Explained, have decided it would be in the best interest of all of humanity cancel Thursday this week.

Sure, many of the Geochronologists felt it would be much better to just postpone Thursday until next week, feeling that eliminating a whole twenty four hour cycle could have catastrophic effects, possibly destroying the frail fabric of space time.  They warned that it could cause such rifts in our universe that it could shatter worlds, and "tear asunder the universe to such a point that the entire history of all that ever was would be wiped clean, and we would have rebooted time itself."

Maybe, and that could be bad, but Friday, and a three day weekend would be here one day earlier and that is worth a roll of the dice.

Of course, they reminded us of that incident when we traveled back in time to add another spoonful of coffee grounds to the pot we had just brewed, it was so weak it was practically undrinkable.  They were all worried about toying with events that had already happened.  Sure, the kitchen was destroyed by the monster that sprung from the anomaly in the coffee container from having beans taken so abruptly "out of time sequence," but, nobody died, sure some people are still missing, but nobody even remembers their names anymore.  Yes, the monster is still loose, and that might be a problem, but the kitchen is remodeled, better than ever, and that coffee was fantastic.

Obviously, this is not without risk, and we need to remember the consequences, but, Friday only comes once a week, and it always seems to be so slow in arriving.  And, three day weekends are so rare, and precious that a little risk is worth the reward.  If it works, we will see you tomorrow, on Friday, if not, well it has been fun, and we are sorry we brought such an abrupt end to all of creation.

Wow, how did you do that?

Anybody who takes the time to look around, pay attention, understand, and acknowledge the mysteries and vagaries of life knows there is something not quite right.  Something a little bit unusual, something just a little strange, not completely bad, but not really good either.  There are obviously larger forces at work, surrounding us, manipulating things, making sure there is always something just a bit odd, almost everyday. After a while we learn to ignore the bizarre things, and pretend they are OK.

Our main purpose in starting this blog, and Explaining Life was to shine a light in the dark corners, unravel the great puzzle, reveal the hidden, explain the inexplicable.  So far we have not done very well.  Some of this stuff is pretty danged complicated, you know.  And everywhere we look there are spiders, and invasive species of fish, and snails, and snakes, and we need to caution people about those problems, too.

But, it seems we have strayed, and last night, at the Share Holders meeting, we heard, at great length, about our failures.  We were told about our need to offer reassurance, in dark, troubled times to the frightened masses, hiding underneath their desks, coffee cup, and flashlight in hand.  People who are afraid to step into the light, because it might signal an approaching space ship, filled with angry aliens, desperate for a new home (Earth) with a tasty, abundant food supply (us).   People who are worried that there might be a "face sized spider" (not for the squeamish, or anybody with a face) under the desk, right behind that awful drawer, that always caught on their pants, and was hard to open, and really served no purpose except for tearing fabric, and the concealment of large, predatory spiders!  Probably better to climb out and face the rapidly approaching, ravenous aliens.  Not that we would know anything about that.

Anyway, to help Explain Life we have begun work on a time travel machine.  It was not as difficult as you might think.  We found a place where the space time continuum was stretched a little thinner than normal, The Pukwana Triangle, in central South Dakota (home to the PukU bar and grill, if you are passing by stop in, have a beer, and say hello).  Then took some riding lawn mowers, removed the blades, and beefed up the engines.  When the atmospheric conditions were just right we sent them zipping around in a circle until they reached escape velocity, and bam they were gone.  Here is the video.

We are going to file a full report, as soon as we find out where they went, and what they are doing.  We think they ended up in the future, around 2035, somewhere around Sao Paulo.  As long as they are there we hope they do a little research the effects climate change has on the Brazilian Wandering Spider, (without bringing one back, of course) they are awful things.  Though, they could be anywhere, "anytime."  Hey time travel is tricky stuff, but we think you are worth the effort, and so are the shareholders, and the board of directors, and the person who signs our paychecks, especially them.

Time Travel, yeah, it ain't so great.

Recently a pair of Physics professors at the Michigan Technical University began a search for time travelers.  Using the benefits of modern technology they started searching social media sites for references to events that had yet to occur.  Maybe a tweet about what a snappy dresser Pope Francis was, pre-coronation.  Or some facebook post about Comet ISON, before it was discovered.   Those were the kinds of events they wanted to be the focus of the search.  Unfortunately, they found no evidence of time travel.

Though, in fairness, certain technological limitations inherent in many social media sites are not conducive to searching for time travelers.  Facebook allows the backdating of status updates, for example, which might explain how Abe Lincoln thanked everyone for getting the much coveted five dollar gig on his wall, while he was still in office.  And Google Trends will only show the most popular search terms, and time travelers are probably a little nerdy, and would not factor in with the "cool" kids, and their searches.

Also, and this is one thing they did not take into account, time travel imposes strict embargoes on information.  Recently, we here at Life Explained invented a time travel device.  We connected our cell phone with the copier, ran 220 volts through it, and typed tomorrow into a text and sent it to ourselves.  It started shaking, and moving across the floor like it was trying to run away, and the phone played a ring tone that sounded like a funeral dirge.  The lights in the whole building flickered, and seemed to be sending an SOS, and for a brief second I think Elvis was in the building.  And then;  BAM, it was tomorrow.

Thinking quickly, we jumped ahead to the end of the Super Bowl, and checked the winner, then came back and called our bookie, but we could not place the bet.  "Hello, Bob, the bookie, we would like to bet $10,000 big ones on ________ to win the Super Bowl."  It was blanked out by silence, we couldn't say it, we couldn't whisper it, we couldn't scream it.  We tried to fax it to Bob, and he got everything but the team.  Handwriting, emails, smoke signals, tweets, nothing worked.  

It was so frustrating to have that knowledge, so maddening to be able to look ahead and see the future, to understand the consequences of our actions, and realize that the smallest decision can have a huge impact and not be able to turn it into a few bucks.   It was awful!

Really, about the only useful purpose we have found for time travel is to cruise ahead and see how that haircut would really look, it has saved some serious humiliation, and shame, possibly a couple of marriages.  But, you should definitely shave your head, and get that tattoo, you (will) look like great like that.