The top 10 reasons why you should have a hammock instead of a bed

Alison and I came up with the Top 10 reasons why you should have a hammock instead of a bed.

1. When was the last time that you laundered your bed? That's gross! I heard from a reliable source (a stand up comedian) that there a 10 million dust mites in the average bed. Your bed might be super-average. My kids would invariably (when they were sick) come over to my bed and throw up on it. How do you clean that off? With a hammock you just put it in the washing machine.
2. Your back will thank you. I once got attacked by a car while biking to work. My neck was never the same since then... until we got a hammock. I now only have neck problems when I want them (which is to say when I sleep in a bed.)
3. You love your spouse and want to cuddle with them. A hammock enables (and even enforces) that cuddling. If you don't love your spouse (or cuddling (like that is even possible)) you can get two hammocks - one for yourself and one for your spouse. Just make sure that one of them is big enough so that if you want to cuddle sometimes then you can cuddle.
4. Your bed is trying to kill you. What I mean to say is that hammocks do not have to be fire retardant like the government has mandated that all beds are. The out-gassing of fire retardant materials into your room from a mattress is guaranteed to kill you (unless something else does it first). Every person who has ever slept on a bed is either dead right now or is in the process of dying.
5. You can take your hammock and you can hang it up against one wall and reclaim your entire room whenever you are not sleeping in it. This allows you to have a smaller bedroom and still get a larger amount of use out of it than a normal size bedroom. Japanese people have been doing this for years by sleeping on small mats and putting them away during the day. The only problem with the Japanese method is that it is impossible that those little mats are comfortable (Unless you are Japanese, I guess). I played a game this weekend called Sushi Go! which almost makes me Japanese but not quite Japanese enough to enjoy sleeping on a mat on the ground.
6. Hammocks allow you to sleep in a much cooler condition in the summer. They allow heat to radiate in all of the directions instead of just up so you can get cool from the bottom as well as from the top.
7. You can have multiple hammocks in trendy colors so that you can show off your fashion sense and style (the extra hammocks will easily fit in a closet or something. They don't take up that much room)
8. Hammocks are portable, so if you want to take your hammock with you to sleep on the road or something like that (not literally on the road, that's dangerous. Sleep in the gutter.) you can totally carry your hammock around with you. If you want to carry around your mattress you probably have to have a really big truck. Good luck with using a mattress on a camp out (or in the gutter for that matter).
9. Hammocks are far less expensive than mattresses and they're more comfortable anyway. You could buy 4 or 5 hammocks for the price of one bed and then you can change out your hammocks every season or however often you want to.
10. Unless you like sweeping out the underside of your bed regularly, underneath your bed is a really gross place. Every so often if you move your bed you'll find that there is a desiccated apple core, or a dried up piece of pizza. You will never find such nonsense underneath your hammock because you move your hammock every single day when you get out of it.
11. If your kids decide to climb in your bed and have a cracker party it is difficult to clean it out. With a hammock, you just dump it over and all the crumbs are ready to be swept/vacuumed off of the floor.

In other news, on Wednesday night we went to grandma Julie's house so that Mike could go to Salt
Con, and present his games on Thursday morning to the judges for the Ion Award (he had two finalists this year (which is the same number as last year.))

During the convention Mike did a lot of game trades. He now has 7 new games to try out. He also traded a game for a friend.

Rea, Sara, and Timmy all liked playing Animal Upon Animal, and also Don't Rock the Boat. Sara and Rea also played Flash Point: Fire Rescue, and did surprisingly well. It was surprising to find a game that a three year old, a five year old, and adults all found enjoyable.

On Saturday the results of the competition were announced, and the winning game was Scarlet Pimpernel (not one of Mike's games). The winning game was an excellent game, so Mike understands why he did not win, but it is still a little bit sad to have lost for the third time.

The two player setup that was used to present to the publisher

On a happier note, during the convention he presented one of his games to one of the publishers at the convention and they said that they would be happy to receive a copy of the rules and to look them over. He is cleaning up the rules now, and will send the files over to the publisher soon.

While we were at grandma Julie's house Rea really liked playing with Ellie, and playing outside. Ellie was sick with a sickness that we later identified as Hand, Foot, and Mouth disease. Sara and Timmy are now running a 101° temperature, so we can only assume that they both contracted it. Rea, however is still acting fine. She is even making presents for all sorts of people.

We are probably going to have some more sick kids stories in this next blog post. Don't anyone come over to visit us next week!