En Route to Nationals

Oh man. No cleverness in this blog post, I'm far too all-over-the-place. I just submitted the final project for my Cog Sci class, for which I had to start from scratch on Tuesday night. As you can imagine, that was more than a bit of a challenge, but here I am, still alive.

Somewhat fortunately, the team's flight to Kansas City was canceled due to weather. This gave me time to finish the paper now, rather than in Kansas. On the other hand, the scrambling that ensued, especially on the parts of Mark and FarmerAndy, was more stress than we'd anticipated.

Interesting factoid:
Under stress, an inert material like steel or glass has one of two options. It can bend like elastic, returning to its original shape once the stress is gone. Otherwise, it can deform like plastic, reorganizing on a molecular level so that it's never the same as it once was. Eventually, under enough stress, the material will fail.

Under stress, a biological material has these same options. However, after failing, (most) living tissue begins to regenerate. You need an X-ray just to tell if a bone has ever been broken. Scars are even harder than the original skin. Muscles actually need to be torn in order to grow.

My humongous laptop doesn't fit in my carry-on, so I'm leaving it at home. Maybe I'll borrow a laptop to blog from the Midwest, maybe I won't. I'm bringing my notebook, though, so I'll keep writing, and you'll just have to be patient.

I'm also bringing enough clothing to overheat an Eskimo. F'in Kansas in f'in December, I'll tell you what.


P.S. Welcome back, GI Mark