I'm Moving

Now some of you probably read the title and thought I was moving to Hawaii or something. That would be a good assumption since I love the beach and I move frequently.

I'm happy to say that I'm not moving (at least for the moment), but my blog is. I've decided to move my blog to Word Press. It seems a bit less clunky to use and a little more mac friendly. There are some things I like about blogger better, but what the heck, I thought I'd give WP a try. Here's the new link:

http://disjourney.wordpress.com

This is my last posting to this blogspot site. For new postings to to the above URL.

Search for Intelligence

While most people spend tens of thousands of dollars and endless hours of their time in pursuit of degrees in higher education, I decided to take a more simple approach to gaining knowledge.

The other day while at Whole Foods searching for a drink to compliment my dinner selection, I stumbled across a beverage called Brain Toniq. Intrigued by its clever name and simplistic label, I grabbed a can and began reading about the contents of this peculiar drink. I discovered that Brain Toniq is a clean and intelligent think drink. It contains no caffeine, no processed sugar and no fake anything. And for all my Jewish friends it’s also kosher-certified. I thought “What the heck, I’ll try it.” After all $1.49 seems like a small investment in my education compared to the people I know who spent a lot more than that and don’t appear to be any more intelligent for all their effort.

While waiting for my friends to check out, I grabbed us a table next to three young high school students. They had their textbooks out and appeared to have just finished studying. I asked them if they felt like they were learning anything and they shrugged their shoulders, giggled a little and finally one of them said, “I guess.”

“School is fun, but I have a new way of learning,” I told them as I held up my can of Brain Toniq for them to see. “I’m going to drink this and it’s gonna make me smarter,” I said rather enthusiastically. They looked at me a little dumbfounded and then to each other, not really sure how to respond. At that point, I said, “Well it was nice chatting with you. Good luck with school,” then I proceeded to get napkins and utensils for our table.

Soon after, my friends arrived and we began to eat. I was definitely more excited about my drink than my dinner. I would be remiss if I didn’t tell you that I had the urge to sprinkle the can over my head rather than imbibe it. But, I chose to drink it instead.

The first thing I noticed was that Brain Toniq tastes really good. The taste actually caught me by surprise because things that are supposed to be good for you don’t usually taste good. And I really, really enjoyed the sweet, citrus taste of it.

The second thing I noticed was…well, nothing. I didn’t feel any different. Was that just my brain playing tricks on me? Maybe I should have taken a before and after test to see if my IQ changed. With higher education you have lectures, homework, exams etc. as sort of measuring sticks to gauge your learning experience. With Brain Toniq, well, you just drink it.

I guess only time will tell if the drink had any affect on me.

Monkey Poop and Evolution

When meeting new people who are from different countries and are learning English, I like to ask them off-the-wall questions to relax them and take their mind off their language struggles. A few weeks ago I was talking to a girl from Costa Rica and the conversation went something like this.

“Costa Rica is a lot different from South Florida, I’ll bet you have a lot of different types of trees, plants and animals. Did you have any monkeys running around your neighborhood where you grew up?”

“In the rain forest there are lots of monkeys,” she replied giving me a puzzled look.

“What do the monkeys do?” I asked curiously.

“They throw poop at you!” she said with a smile.

“Excuse me, did you say poop?”

“Yes, poop” she mimicked pointing to her butt then pretending to throw imaginary poop.

“Gee, I really didn’t expect you to say that. I really saw this conversation going in a different direction,” I laughed hysterically.

We spend the next several minutes laughing, discussing monkeys and some of the other finer things about Costa Rica. But our monkey conversation stuck with me.

Later that evening I began to contemplate the monkey’s behavior and I started thinking about all the scientists who believe in the theory of natural selection and how we evolved from apes.

I don’t have the foggiest idea why monkeys would throw poop but I can imagine they might exhibit that behavior when they feel threatened or territorial. I don’t know about you, but when I feel that way, the last thing I think about doing is defecating and throwing my poop at someone. It’s just not a natural instinct for me. And I’m pretty confident that none of my relatives would do that either. Okay, maybe I can envision one person, but that’s all.

So, I came up with my own theory. I believe Darwin must have taken a trip to Costa Rica and one day while he was walking through the rain forest, he got hit in the head by monkey poop which left him traumatized and greatly affected his judgment thereafter. The experience caused him to have strange dreams and soon he believed the monkey to be his great great great great great great grandfather.

Later in life Darwin’s trauma began to fade and he started to come to his senses about natural selection when he said “To suppose the eye with all its inimitable different contrivances for adjusting true focus to different distances, for admitting different amounts of light and for correction of spherical and chromatic aberration, could have been formed by natural selection, seems, I freely confess, absurd in the highest degree.”

Or more simply put. “Monkey see, monkey do. Human see monkey do, human not do. Therefore the natural selection theory is a bunch of monkey poop.”

Random Observation #3

Have you ever wondered why some tires wear out faster than others? At first I thought it might be the extreme Floridian heat that melted some of the weaker spots in my tire. Then I thought the no-see-ums could be the culprit. Although I’ve never seen them, I’ve seen what they can do to flesh.

Luckily before curiosity got the best of me, I discovered the colorful tire-eating bug that explained the mystery.