Yes, death is an interest of mine. Years ago, when I got married, there were many deaths among family and friends. There were so many deaths, my wife and I joked about our marriage ending the same way. Unfortunately, we were correct. Many deaths in a few short years, with hers as the final death in the line. So yes, I have a morbid interest in death.

My interest this evening is Cryonics or the freezing of human or animal bodies with the “possibility” of bringing them back to life.

Why? Currently there is no known reversal method, so why do it now. It costs a lot of money to keep a body/head in a ‘suspended’ state, and there is no and may never be a reversal method. Sound like someone is playing with the emotions of people near death, or their families.

Even if there ever is a reversal process in the next 50 to 100 years, why would anyone want to revive the “dead” people? There are complaints of over population now, do we really want to have an alternative way to put more bodies on the planet. We do well enough now with the usual approach (having babies — explanation for those who weren’t sure what method is used). I can’t see that happening, unless they want something.

How will you fit in? The future will be different than life now, how will you cope? 25 years ago, personal computers were in their infancy. Now just about everyone has one. What changes will occur in the next 25 years? Next 50? Next 100? 200? If you are having trouble with text messaging on a cell phone, or wonder about all these people with things hanging out of their ears, will you be able to cope with things going on around you in the future?

And the real thing I wonder about is what is the ego of a person who wants to be frozen and thawed later. I’m not saying anything about family decisions (later…), but about a persons desire to put off death to be cured at a later date. Is anyone really that important?

And about a family that decides to keep one of their relatives, do they love/need the person so much to try to keep them around, or is it a comfort that just maybe? I could never see doing this for myself or for someone I care about. I think there would be too much anguish on both sides if and/or when the body can be thawed.

And I haven’t even touched on any religious aspects of this. I think that may be the start of a different post. Many things I would have to wrap my mind around for that…

We are very fortunate to be able to visit the Orlando area in Florida (read: Disney World!) yearly, but during our past two visits, CNN has been overrun with news of unexpected and shocking celebrity deaths.  In February 2007 during our visit, the breaking news was of model/actress Anna Nicole Smith’s early demise.  It was widely speculated that she was on drugs, but her death was still very surprising especially considering her 20-year-old son, Daniel Smith’s shocking death just 3 months earlier.

During our latest outing to the Sunshine State in late January of this year, it was Heath Ledger’s accidental overdose that ruled the news.  At the time, I have to admit that I didn’t know exactly who he was or what movies he was in, but I did recognize what a big name he had in show business.  His death took everyone by surprise; so much so, that the event completely dominated the news while we were in Florida.  With gas prices the way they are, I don’t know if we’ll make it back to Orlando this October as planned; we might have to push it off until early next year in January or February or even wait until the kids are older altogether…  But if we do decide to go, I’ll put out the word to watch out for a random celebrity’s unexpected passing…

Yes, this will be a post about death, so if you don’t want to read about it, stop right here. The next paragraph will be about some silly stuff just in case you failed to be driven away. I don’t want anyone to say they saw the morbid stuff too quick.

Heavy rains this past week or so caused a small short in one of my trucks turn signal lights. I could tell because when I turned a corner the blinker would start going really fast, and then it would slow down after I started going straight again. The increased blinker speed is to let me know there is a turn signal light out. Just found that interesting. This summer is just flying by, I noticed our local Wally World already had school supplies out. So we jump past summer picnic season to school after the 4th of July. Makes me wonder what date they use in other parts of the world.

Morbid stuff starts now…..

My eldest daughter, her husband and I were talking about what to do with our bodies after we die. I was thinking about having my ashes turned to diamonds for each of my daughters. (If I can ever afford to do that, it is an expensive way to take care of a dead body.) Then I thought it would be nice to donate my body to science after removing any organs that can be used in transplants. We did get a little creative on this too. Like donating my skeleton to my old high school. I imagine that would be something. Or maybe encasing the said skeleton in Acrylic. Ashes mixed in with wood finishes was talked about, or even mixing the ashes with cement or tile mud. All very interesting things that could be done.

The one thing we talked about that I though was really interesting was the idea of donating my body to a Body Farm. I thought that was a very interesting concept. I had not heard of this before my son-in-law mentioned that it was what he was interested in. What made this more interesting is that I received an email from www.howstuffworks.com about the same subject. Then a did a Google search on the same topic.

Not only does donating your body to a body farm make a lot of sense financially (funerals and burial/cremation are very expensive), it also makes sense in a ‘Green’ way. An added bonus is that future CSIs can learn a lot from watching a body decompose. The “Green’ way is that you skip the added fuel and machinery needed to put a body in an big concrete block. Also skipped is the about of fuel need to completely consume a human body when it is cremated. What was our bodies will never get recycled by the planet when surrounded by tons of concrete. In the body farm the bodies are left exposed to the elements with the normal cycle of nature, doing what it does so well, using what is left over to support and renew the environment. I like the idea, but then again, the old pine boxes we used to use allowed the remains to be recycled by nature.

I do understand the other environmental needs to make sure that disease isn’t spread, but I think we tend to go way overboard with the complete enclosure in concrete.

Now my daughter, the genealogist, wants to make sure we put a plaque up somewhere for future generations. I don’t know if I see the point in that, but for her I would be willing. I have a feeling future genealogists will have a better way of finding out about their ancestors. The internet will be crawling with information if it isn’t already.

So, I will be looking into setting up my donation to a Body Farm, unless I win a big lottery. I kind of like the idea of my girls being able to say “Daddy is forever…” Morbid sense of humor, true, but it still tickles me.