Life Lessons: Just because you can doesn't mean you should.

Over the past few weeks I've been growing out my beard. Last week I wanted to shave it, but a coworker convinced me we should both keep our facial hair (he'd been growing a beard as well) until the end of the week. On Thursday, the amazing idea popped into my head that we should establish "Mustache Monday." The idea was to keep our beards until Sunday, and then shave them in time for work on Monday, leaving only a mustache. And here's what I learned. Just because you can do something doesn't mean that you should do something. I do not wear a Fu Manchu well. I'd planned to take a picture of what I'd sported all day to work, but I forgot and I was in a rush to shave before I saw Inception (which was an incredible film. I recommend it to everyone). The image below give's you a (scarily accurate) representation of what I looked like. Let this be a cautionary tale.Just because you can doesn't mean you should.

Bring on the Heat

I'll be the first to admit that I don't write on my blog very often. Or the second to admit it. The first person to tell you I don't blog enough would be my wonderful mother. I recently made a deal with my friend Adam that for every day he posts to his blog I would post a day as well, and vice-versa. Here’s my answer to his wonderful first post of his experiences teaching English in Korea.

I recently moved to Arizona to take a job as an engineer. It’s a really great place and I love the work I do, and really the only negative thing I can think of is the heat. It’s almost indescribable but at the same it is survivable if you treat an Arizona summer the same way you’d treat a Colorado winter: just stay indoors and wait for better weather. It’s never really too hot in the 6:00am hour when I’m driving to work, with my thermometer in the car reading temperatures in the 80’s. Some days I can even drive with the windows down and enjoy some fresh(ish) air and blast Knights of Cydonia as I make my way to Higley and McDowell.

After work though it’s a completely different story. Trekking across the parking lot to the car is like traversing a never-ending molten sea of sadness. There is also no respite once you get to the car, instead you enter another level of hot. This level of hot is the level that doesn’t allow you to remember how cute puppies are. Or anything else that’s happy. In this level of hot there are only two things keeping you company: sweat and the light-sucking vortex of despair that used to be your soul.

Life picks up dramatically once your lethargy permits you to turn on the car and crank up the AC. Soon you can remember the laughter of children. Colors infiltrate your vision once again…with desert brown being replaced with blue and green and happy yellows and reds. Before you know it you’re more in danger of hypothermia than you are of heat stroke, but you happily let the ice-storm pour from the vents and bathe you in frozen hugs of love. I love AC.

So all is well once again. Arizona rocks. We can beat it! We have the technology and the tenacity. Never give up, and never surrender.

PS: This last week I’ve been really sad because I thought my AC was going out in my car. It turns out I’d bumped the thermostat knob so it was half-way to hot. I’m glad I discovered this today because it’s supposed to be 114 tomorrow.

Vote for Chris in "Put a link to 'Telling It Like It Is Since 1985' in his family's blog!"

I don't want to beat around the bush: PUT A LINK OF MY BLOG IN the family blog!!! If you take the time to visit you'll see that all of my sisters are represented, with one sister even boasting two links! I am humbled and admired by the sacrifices the men and women of the armed forces are making, but does the Fort Stewart homepage really get more precedence than a beloved son?

Please join with me, all of my faithful readers, in campaigning for me to get a link in my family's blog. Write letters to your congressmen, form a picket line, spread the word. Together we can change this grievous offense and bring about the change for which we all dream! Thank you for your continued love and support.