Busy month this go-round. I’ll be glad when the bulk of testing and error-correcting passes. It’s a pretty thick sheaf of issues to chop down in the next couple of weeks…I’ll be glad once the rollout for the new software is complete.

Shouldn’t evolution have taken care of our blown-out knees and aching backs? Instead, evolution may be to blame; chimps don’t tear menisci or herniate discs like we do. It could be that our knees and backs are such a pain because we insist on standing upright. When our ancestors stood up on two feet, they stumbled upon a much more efficient way of walking that uses 75 percent less energy than knuckle-dragging. Over the next several million years, natural selection refined the structural modifications that keep our torso centered over our lower half as we put one foot in front of the other: longer legs, knobby knees, an elongated spine. But those adaptations can be a bit of a kludge.

By stacking the thigh bone directly on top of the shin bone, we’ve saddled our knees with more weight than they can handle. Even when you’re just strolling down the street, the pressure exerted on your knees is three to five times your body weight. During more strenuous activity like running or climbing stairs, it can be double that. By the time you hit 30, the cartilage that distributes your weight across the joint has already begun to wear away. The tissue loss may eventually lead to osteoarthritis, and the shin and thigh bones will begin to rub against each other. This so-called wear-and-tear arthritis sends about 5.5 million people to doctors every year.

The same thing happens to our vertebrae, which weren’t designed to sit on top of each other in one weight-bearing column. With time, the cushions between the bones lose some of their spring, and then one day, as you lift a grocery bag or slump in your chair, a disc can bulge out of place. Pain, numbness, and spasms result because the disc is now pressing on a nerve that connects your spinal cord to the rest of your body. More than 80 percent of working Americans will suffer from back pain that’s severe enough to limit their activity at some point during their careers.

Surgery is just a temporary fix for our anatomical woes. After a decade, replacement cartilage can wear away, too. But we can’t blame all of our aches on design flaws. The fact that we spend so much time hunched over a keyboard — level 70 World of Warcraft players, are you listening? — can’t be good. It might help if we all got up off our highly evolved duffs more often.

Dinner was pseudo-chicken and noodles in a cream sauce with peas and broccoli… nom nom nom.

Jamie sent us a few photos of the Lime-Vanilla Ice ring cast in wax…. it looks good!

What were you doing 10 years ago?
1998: First couple of months in at FMM… Hanging out with Kev, Cathi & Dave, Nicole & Heather.

What were you doing 1 year ago?

Admiring Snow! (see links below)

Five snacks you enjoy?

1. Chocolate Covered pretzels
2. Utz Smok’n Sweet BBQ Chips
3. Cheese and Crackers
4. hummus and pita bread / bagel chips
5. Mandarin Oranges

Five songs that you know all the lyrics to?

1. The Zombies – This Will Be Our Year
2. Grateful Dead – Casey Jones
3. The Beatles – Yesterday
4. David DeBoy – Crabs for Christmas
5. Talking Heads – Crosseyed and Painless

Five things you would do if you were a millionaire

1. Pay off all of my (and my family’s) debts
2. build a house nearby to BHK and my specs
3. Retire, but volunteer.
4. Travel
5. Get a personal trainer/ physician to get me into shape

Five bad habits

1. skipping proper sleep
2. procrastination regarding chores / desk surface
3. sedentary behavior
4. junk food
5. shutting up completely when interrupted

Five things you like doing

1. spending time with BHK
2. catching up on sleep
3. playing games with family & friends
4. reading a good book
5. watching and learning…. about people, critters, landscapes, anything.

Five things you would never wear again (Well… never say never!)

1. Combat boots (my left foot can’t do it)
2. T-shirts smaller than a 3x, no matter how much weight I lose… my trunk is long.
3. my bronzed baby shoes
4. brut cologne
5. anything else that I’ve outgrown!

Five favorite toys

1. My Brain
2. Carcassonne (does a board game count? Can I count our games closet?)
3. PSP/Wii/PC
4. Army Men (or the like – pirate ships, heroclix, action figures, puppets, etc)
5. Paper and Crayons

Five Things I Should Be Doing Instead of Blogging

1. Doing real writing practice
2. Following up on my emails
3. Back exercises
4. Packaging up stuff to mail
5. Faxing info to Doc

Five Things I Could Be Doing Instead of Blogging that are Fun, but Not Productive.

1. Chasing the cats and BHK around the house while shouting “Woogity Woogity”
2. Playing Orange Box
3. Catching up on Psych
4. Snuggling in bed
5. Doodling

2 years ago – superhero drawing memes, CNY, Bro’s situation improved briefly, lost, spidey video views, Sting

3 years ago – Worked late, EN’s cable out, sad- sicky mel, busy phone, amber alert, great day to be alive theme

4 years ago – Year of the monkey!, new icons, act like a monkey, a fellow ljers house burns down

5 years ago – honey rant, healing hands, newt pic, cuss control, cold snap

6 years ago – spy ware killer, stab-dream, home school poll, animal noises around the world, sound

7 years ago – IMT stuff, be good, Model of the modern super-criminal, birthday wish