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painful legs and nicked fingers
Sunday, November 7 2010
I continued enlarging the greenhouse well hole for a second day today, and by now all the hoisting of buckets full of rock had written a story of pain across the muscles in my legs (though not so much on the rest of musculature). I mostly noticed this pain when I was away from the greenhouse, particularly after sitting in front of my computer for a few minutes. The transition from doing nothing with my legs to doing something with them made them cry out momentarily, "Are you fucking serious?" But then, a few seconds later, they'd be nearly as responsive and flexible as always.
Another minor health consequence of working with shale is something I've touched on before: the many finger injuries that come to those who carelessly gather up shattered pieces (many of which have knifelike edges on them). I rarely wear gloves when working with my hands because they make me feel clumsy, and I wasn't about to start for this project.
As I worked, I listened to a new podcast I've started downloaded, Skepticality, a podcast for skeptics. "Skeptic," for those unfamiliar with the term, refers to those who need well-reasoned logic and scientific evidence to support the things that they believe. Skeptics tend to believe in evolution, the germ theory of disease, heliocentrism, and global warming. They tend not to believe in alternative medicine, astrology, creationism, 9/11 trutherism, ghosts, or any form of god. Though I find myself having to catch myself when hearing a particularly juicy conspiracy theory, I've always been a skeptic, and since skepticism is in such short supply in the world, I have always found listening to it refreshing. So it was a good podcast to listen to as I chiseled away at rocks, loaded them into a bucket, and carried them out to the pile west of the greenhouse. One of the great things about a skepticism podcast is that it can range into all manner of topics in the places where politics meets science and religion. There's a strain of skepticism with an angry libertarian bent (particularly in magazines such as Reason and in the rants of Penn Jillette), but Skepticality seems to be rooted more in pragmatic liberalism.
For linking purposes this article's URL is:
http://asecular.com/blog.php?101107 feedback
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