I may be a psychopath

I came across this article this morning and it left me a little unsettled. Self diagnosis is a dangerous thing and I am very prone to it. I have already diagnosed myself with chronic congestion disorder, degenerative hip disease (which seems to be getting better so I guess I wasn't irreversible), bad knees and perhaps a slow growing brain tumor (I forget things all the time, simple things... like the word for the holiday where people dress up in costumes and then go ask for candy, oh yeah that's called Halloween). Now I may have to add to the list psychopath.

Most people would read an article entitled Can you tell a psychopath by the way they speak? and start to think of the people they know how might fit the profile. I on the other hand start to wonder if I might not be a psychopath because I say "so" a lot and am easily annoyed with people, especially Atlanta drivers, they're crazy. It's moments like this that I wonder why I even went to school as I conflate association and causation and violate a number of other rules of statistical application and just plain common sense. I also wonder if a psychopath ever thinks they are psychopaths. If this article is to be believed there are far more psychopaths than we think and I swear they are all giving public health webinar that I am forced to listen to, and grate my teeth with every "umm" and "uh" and other disfluences used. I'll let my reader(s) make their own judgements.

Here's my favorite comment on this article: "Uhh… Hmmmm… This post is so-so."

Goats and Mountains

I took a quick trip to North Carolina with K and E this weekend. We had a grand time staying at a co-workers cabin and making a quick trip to Great Smoky Mountains National Park. It was a pleasant trip and good times were had by all, though E may emphasis the low-temperatures a bit too much. The temp in Atlanta has dropped and in the mountains that means it was down right chilly. It got down into the high forties at the cabin and below freezing at the summit of Clingmans Dome, the highest point of the Smokys. It's really a beautiful park and free I will definitely be going back.

But we couldn't go all the way up to North Carolina without stopping in one of North Georgia's most famous, classy destinations: Goats on a Roof.

K&E with goats on roof.

You can feed them by putting food in a cup and then peddling it up to the goats.

Goats eagerly anticipating goat food.

Luckily for me and them, the goats can set food on solid ground if wanted.

An abandoned chimney on Kephart trail.

This is what it looked like at Clingman's Dome.

The view at a little lower elevation.

The three of us with Rip Van Winkle in the background, who apparently just woke up from his long slumber.