Survival Skills

There's a lot to learn about living in the extreme cold...especially when you're from a corner of the nation where the only people with 4-wheel drive vehicles are flatbillers with west coast chopper tattoos or anyone who feels like wasting a couple thousand bucks on something they'll never use. In other words, if you're from San Diego chances are you don't know what to do when things start to freeze, unless of course they're freezing because you put them in the freezer to preserve freshness, shelf life or so that you don't have to throw your leftovers...then you'll probably know what to do with it, like throw it out when you don't eat it after 4 years and your ground beef now looks like a gallon zip-lock filled with brown snow cone, except that it has "Ground Beef Jan '05" scribbled in black sharpie on the label.

But, I digress...

Back to the original topic. Living in the extreme cold.

So far in MN I've learned:

• How to keep water from freezing in my gas tank/fuel line
• How to ignore 'Service Engine Soon' lights in the winter. Soon is a relative term after all.
  
• How to gain weight "just in case" I need it later
• How to not freak out when my truck slides into the snow-filled ditch in the middle of the interstate
• How to avoid going outside when it's just too cold and to eat rhubarb pie and ice cream in the safety of a heated home instead.
  

My most recent lesson focused on ice fishing. If I could conquer this simple exercise, my source of food would be secured in the event of an emergency and I'd be able to live another day.

Well, I must be doing something wrong because I've been out ice fishing three times now and haven't even had a fish sniff my bait. The kid at the bait shop said that the fish just aren't biting right now, but I think that's crap. I think ice fishing is a joke that Minnesotans like to play on Californians...a pretty funny joke too I might add. It's right up there with the ol' Coot freezing in the lake bit, which I'm proud to say that I didn't fall for. Ha, I'm not that gullible...I'm not going to believe EVERYTHING you tell me about the cold.

Congratulations on the ice fishing one though. You sure got me good.

A Challenge

My good friend Jeremiah in LA decided to throw an email challenge my way the other day.

From Jeremiah:

"hey Eric. Could you go take a picture of yourself doing a snow angel in your boxers and send it to us? I think that would be fun to see."

Please keep in mind that the mercury was hovering around 0 degrees F during the time of the request. As such, a concession was made that I was allowed to wear some vital clothing: my Umbros and a sleeveless t-shirt.

Top 5 List

I have no problem admitting that this blog sucks. How am I supposed to be on the cutting edge and a premier source of entertainment for my three readers (myself included...Mary gave up a long time ago) when I don't write anything for months at a time??

I'll tell you how. A top five list! And away we go...

Top five reasons this blog sucks (in reverse order):

5. The so-obvious-it's-not-even-funny obvious: November 9th was my last post...that's over 2 MONTHS ago. Sucky.

4. The of-course-,-that's-plainly-obvious obvious: We stopped hiking two months ago and our adventures have slowed considerably. Granted, living with my mom is always an adventure (just kidding mom) but I've done run out of things to write about. In other words, my blog sucks now (relatively speaking of course, so if you thought it sucked before than it really sucks now).

3. The obvious: The frigid cold in MN has switched my body into survival mode. This means my body has opted to prioritize things like breathing and weight gain over things like showering and blogging. It's a glamorous life we're living, let me tell you.

2. The not-so-obvious-but-makes-sense obvious: my diet has switched from lean proteins and quick-burning carbs to carne asada burritos and jalapenos to pickled herring and cheeseballs. In other words, my body has been terribly confused lately and as such was in no state to write blog entries. Luckily, it seems to be adapting quite well to the herring and cheeseball state, which is why I've decided to resume my writing...that and it's -20 outside right now and I can't do anything other than write to you. Write suckily that is. (Side note: oddly enough, suckily didn't trigger the automatic spellchecker...Way to go Google!) (Side note II: automatic spellchecker was triggered on suckily with considerable delay. Suckily is not a word, per Google. Something tells me they have some algorithm to continually scan blogs for criticisms and bugs in their products which was able to read my previous side note and automatically update their dictionary. I'm on to you Google! And you thought suckily was a word! Ha.)

1. The it's-totally-not-your-fault-you-didn't-realize-because-it's-absolutely-not-obvious obvious: I shaved my mustache off...about a month and a half ago and should've told you. The shame I feel is overpowering and I haven't been able to face the aforementioned three of you (myself included) until now. I mean, how am I supposed to maintain a blog titled "Have Mustache - Will Travel" without a mustache! I struggled with this mightily until recently, where I was able to reason that since we're not technically traveling anymore I don't need to have a mustache. That got me through the moral crux I was in and I've emerged ready to write once again.

Here is a picture of my current lip status:



That's right, it sucks.