jesseslife.com

Douglas Adams, author of the [Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy][], has always been one of my favorite humor/sci-fi authors. In the original radio program (not sure if the scene is in any of the books or not), Adams describes a planet in which the populace has an way of defining success that I’ve related to recently. To paraphrase, it was discovered that it was no big deal to accomplish something if you have everything stacked in your favor. For example, to compose a symphony if one is musically gifted, or win a marathon if one has significantly more legs than one’s competitors, is just not that impressive. The real accomplishment was in overcoming adversity. In this future world, being that all physical maladies had long since been cured, a few people began reintroducing diseases, just to have something to overcome. A notable example was one television newscaster that gave himself to such an awful lisp that his speech was rendered all but unintelligible. He, however, went on to win dozens of major awards due to his courage and determination. A few enterprising engineers, noting a lucrative business opportunity, developed a device that would allow one to generate an appropriate obstacle at the touch of a button. You’d get all the advantages of adversity without the inconvenience of actually permanently suffering from some condition. For example, if you had to cook dinner, the device would totally remove one of your arms. The accomplishment of preparing a meal in such a state would be far more important than if you’d had the full use of all your limbs. Then, just before your dinner guests arrive, you’d turn off the device so that’d you’d still be able to shake hands with everyone. Brilliant!

In that spirit, I have decided to contract [rheumatic fever][] before heading out to see the world. I figured that it was far too easy for a man in the prime of his life to do all this traveling; I needed something that would make this trip “ABC After-School Special” material. All kidding aside, I have spent the better part of October sitting on a couch an nursing a pair of knees and feet (not to mention an elbow and my jaw) back to a pain-free and functional state. You’d think that with all that time on my butt I would have had dozens of updates for my web site. You’d be wrong. – so there. While my legs still occasionally hurt in the evenings, I am well on the way to a full recovery. Just one question – why don’t I get any of the fashionable new diseases and I have to get stuck with this antique?

So I forge ahead. I am on the way to Longmont, Colorado to pick up my truck camper from Outfitter Manufacturing. I have my F-350 to which I have duct-taped a pickup bed. There’s lots more to this story, so I’ll set up a separate page to document my truck. The drive is 1200 miles and I have 24 hours in which to complete it. I’ve got country music on the radio, a bag of chips and a bottle of water in front of me (this truck has four cup holders for the use of the two front seat passengers!!), my trusty TomTom enabled PDA and a severe case of cabin fever.

I think this’ll be a good trip. As I headed across the California/Nevada border, I pulled into a rest area to re-tighten the bolts holding down the truck bed. I stood up just as the first few drops of cold rain hit the back of my neck, turned around and saw this. CLICK!

[Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy]: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0330435108/102-8925602-4644107?v=glance&n=283155&n=507846&s=books&v=glance “Amazon”
[rheumatic fever]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rheumatic_fever “Wikipedia article on rheumatic fever”