The Sideburn Dilemma

For over half of my life, I have worn sideburns of varying length and … ah … lushness.

General Ambrose Everett Burnside, a man who would not understand me.

Image from Wikimedia

For this entire period, I have been flummoxed by what must seem like a trivial issue.  I could never get my sideburns to be even from one side of my face to the other.  When the time came for adjustments, I positioned myself close to the mirror, looked for landmarks on my face, and carefully trimmed one sideburn to what seemed like the appropriate length of the day.  I would then repeat this procedure with the opposite side.  The trouble came when I took a step back and saw that they were nowhere near the same level.

Today, after decades of turmoil, I struck upon the root of my problem.  My ears are not even; my left ear is higher on my head than my right.  So when using my ears to fix the correct position of my facial hair, I was doomed.

I am a freak.  Please do not point and/or stare.

Ground Control to Minor Emotions

While listening to one of my favorite podcasts, I heard a recommendation for the album The Race for Space by the British band Public Service Broadcasting.  Now I'm not a huge electronic music fan, but this is a good album.  I have to admit, I may enjoy it a wee bit more because of the extra-geeky history portrayed through the songs.

While listening to this album the other day, my four-year-old daughter asked me about the music.  I told her what the songs were about, and like the good daughter of a nerd, she asked for more information.  We were soon looking up and drawing pictures of Sputnik, Yuri Gagarin’s Vostok 1, Apollo 8, and the Eagle (LM of Apollo 11).

Clearly this is Yuri Gagarin on his way to Space,

The only downside to this whole activity is that my daughter loves the song "The Other Side," and asks for it to play repeatedly.

There is a point in the song where Ground Control in Houston finally regains contact with Apollo 8 as she clears the backside of the Moon.  For some reason, the emotion of that moment gets to me, and I actually well up a little ... each and every time my daughter requests the song.  I can't play it off as something else; it's not even dusty in my house.

So let this be a lesson to you: beware of recommendations from podcasts.  Thank you, Brady Haran, for all of the unnecessarily expended emotions these past few days.

A nearly photorealistic rendition of Apollo 8 going behind the Moon.